The Cradle to the Grave
by TonicPeppermint
Summary: Netta never knew she would be the cause of the decline of the utopia in dystopia, and the violation of an unspoken agreement of exophagy.
1. Chapter 1

"**Act in the valley so that you need not fear those who stand on the hill."**

**-Danish proverb**

I look back on it now, and wonder, was I so lonely that I simply fell into his arms when he was prepared to receive me? I suppose, yes, I was. I was different among those who, anywhere else, would have been horrifically peculiar.

I remember how, after the baby was born, he would watch me sing to her, watch my lips as the words fell out of them. It was a prayer turned lullaby, sung to me first by my mother.

It began: _"Take my hand and lead me,_

_Won't you be my guide?_

_I can see more clearly,_

_When you are by my side."_

I sang airily, though not particularly well. He seemed to marvel at my voice, which I had always found to be average – utilized for my own enjoyment and no one else's. It amused me, the jaw-dropped expression that appeared on his face as I crooned to the baby.

I continued: _"At night when I am resting,_

_Watch over me I pray._

_I will walk with you again,_

_When darkness fades away."_

Afterwards, sometimes, he would take her, too, and she would giggle and play with his fingers – dusty, sandy, and caked in whatever else he'd been prowling in out in the desert. I watched him, as he watched me when I handled the baby, though in an entirely separate manner. His hands and fingers – twitching with pent up violence – made me nervous. Though I never voiced my concern, I disliked the way he played with her, especially as she grew older. He would chase her, as she toddled unsteadily away, proclaiming his desire to eat her. When he caught her, he'd hold her over his head and say, "Oh, you _fat_. Oh, big, fat, and juicy!" before pretending to chew on her arms or stomach or toes.

It never failed to excite her – the chase, the eventual capture. She squirmed and writhed and shrieked in enjoyment. And it never ceased to bother me, to stop me in my tracks. I knew if she were any other child, this would not be a game.

I'm still not entirely sure why I was never killed, like all the others. It could have been several reasons, or all of them compounded together. I was not unlovely, however uncommon that is to say about yourself in all seriousness. But, honestly, more beautiful women than I have died by their hands. It may have been that I was pregnant, but, again, I've no concrete idea.

I was eighteen, nearing six months pregnant. The boyfriend who was the father had left to go to college, and I thought it was just The Worst Thing In The World. When my friends asked me to join them on a road trip to California, I jumped for the opportunity, though I knew it was hardly the responsible choice. I chose to for my own selfish reasons; to get away from my disappointed mother and stepfather, patronizing and belittling strangers, faux-friendly neighbors.

To say I was naïve would be giving me too much credit.

Perhaps I should have known I wouldn't enjoy the trip. My friends were too loud, too raucous. The heat pressed its belly up against the door – the atmosphere weighing heavily down on me, not unlike the baby, not unlike my swelling breasts. I lay down in the backseat, miserable and cramped for hours.

The boy driving, Peter, had a questionable sense of direction. We stopped, like all of the other victims, at the gas station for instructions. There was nothing that particularly caught my attention at the time. I saw the gas station attendant eyeing Isabelle's opal necklace and Christian's silver chain, and I assumed his pitying glance towards my enormous belly was just like any other. A pregnant eighteen-year-old, I'd not been so accustomed to pity since my father's death.

I wonder if, maybe, had he not seen the jewelry and Peter's considerably large wallet, would I have appealed to his better nature? Would he have let us pass?

Regardless, we wound up on the dirt road, unsuspecting, without reason to doubt his sincerity.


	2. Chapter 2

I woke to a searing pain in my temples, bruises along my shoulders and throat, a varicose vein-like network of blood trickling, ever so gently, down my spine. Several of my knuckles were busted – stiff and bruised over. I knew that we had been attacked – but the details? For the life of my baby and I, I could not remember.

It has always been a bit of a blank spot for me. I've never been filled in on whatever it was that transpired, and I have certainly never asked.

The baby was my first concern. I wasn't sure if I had taken a fall or if I'd been hit too hard. I tried to feel for a kick or movement, but there was nothing. Before I knew it, I was very near hysterical. Too shaky to stand, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, knowing only that I was atop a loudly complaining mattress. I recognized shapes – a dresser, a lamp. I reached over to turn it on, and it gave a hot flash of yellow before the bulb popped.

"_Fuck!_" I spit, trying to stay quiet, to creep gently through the blackness.

With a resounding crash, the door swung open, and I was blinded by light. I felt a hand take my wrist, another placed on my stomach. I glimpsed his thin torso, alight in a blast of sun. And then, his face.

_His face!_

I screamed until my voice gave out, tattered like mildew on clothes. It tore at my throat – a raw, unreasonable, faceless thing, with scrabbling claws, that cried, "_Get me out of here!_" Somewhere, at the other end of the scream, two leering faces cackled and giggled.

My breath came heavily – it wobbled and shook like midday heat. I backed away, but the hand, leather-clad and billowing with sand or dust, remained.

The baby kicked. I watched as the corners of the torn mouth turned upwards.

"Pluto," he laughed, "It don' like me." The larger one smiled stupidly, and pressed the side of his face to the fabric of my maternity dress.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I shrieked, and kicked him away. Immediately, I knew I'd made a mistake. His face crumpled, became meaner and smaller.

"She got fight in her!" the other one yelled, and took both my wrists, pulled me away from the bed. He stood behind me, pulled my hand in a punching motion, jerking me forward. I caught him in the ribs with my elbow, hard enough so he hissed in surprise and annoyance and let go of me. I ran out the door, through another, to find another deformed man, with an odd metal contraption around his head. He was not ten feet away, dragging a corpse. It was Peter, his mouth bloody and gaping, chest practically ripped open.

I made almost no sound – a soft, fleeting, "_Oh!_" – and eased myself to my knees. Pluto, the one I later learned was Cyst, and the skinny man all caught sight of me at once. Promptly, I passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Wow, I am so absolutely flattered by the comments the story has received. Thank you so much! I'm going to try to update pretty often, until my writing catches up with me, anyway. But don't worry; I am definitely going to see this thing through.

**-----**

What do captives do in the desert? Not much. For those first few days, I was shut in a room. Later, I would share it with him, but then I wasn't aware I was His.

I never saw them, the – the people. The murderers. The whoever the fuck they were. I saw only the girl, and she covered her deformities well. Long sleeves that hid her hands, her hair consuming most of her face. When, accidentally, I realized it one day, I felt betrayed by the sweet girl who would bring me food – real people food. Not human remains. It may have been a touch of Stockholm's syndrome that kept me so complacent, because I never had any doubt about what was going on with the corpses. I hadn't seen any of the… cannibalism, but I always knew it was happening.

Slowly, though, without realizing it, my presence had been somehow accepted. I was already becoming part of The Family.

That first breath of air, not hindered by bacteria or grime or the aura of fear, was like a release from prison. It was Lizard – that was his name, he told me – who came in, who grabbed my arm as I scrambled from him, who almost had to carry me out the door. If he'd wanted, he could have simply dropped me to the ground, but he didn't. He just – let go. I stood upright in the monotonous heat, and did not comprehend the circumstances in which I'd been released.

"What your name?" he asked. His voice, at that moment, was not what I'd expected it to be. Something mean, I had thought, his words cut with anger. They weren't. It was then I knew they wouldn't hurt me, hadn't hurt me. They'd never behaved maliciously towards me, so why had I imagined they had? The bruises, the stinging temple and jagged cuts – could that not have been caused by my own desire for escape each time they appeared to me? Was it not I who had been cruel, assuming malice by the deformities they possessed? When I first saw them, they hadn't been vicious, not really. Too curious about the baby, perhaps, mocking in tone even. But, that I knew of, I suffered no injuries by them.

"Netta," I told him, and it was the truth.


	4. Chapter 4

The desert was a refuge from the strangeness that encompassed my life. I felt guilty for feeling at home so quickly, for enjoying the company of Ruby or Cyst or the brainless Pluto the same way I would have enjoyed Peter's or Isabelle's.

None of them spoke too often. Some, even, did not seem able to converse. Not Goggle, who, like Pluto, spoke only in single garbled words. I never knew him to stand upright, and expected he had an undiagnosed case of scoliosis. Cyst and Big Brain were eager to speak to anyone who wasn't too childlike or too impatient for their words. Most of what I learned of them and their kind came from one or the other, who I expected were brothers or cousins, perhaps older siblings of Jupiter.

Ruby played the role of little sister to me. Indifferent to the cannibalism, she accompanied me as I made myself scarce while the rest of them dined. Every few days, she would scurry off to the gas station and return with food fit for her and me. I became accustomed to calling her Magpie, and she became accustomed to answering to the pet name.

Any contact between Lizard and I came at night. I slept in his bed, after all, while he camped out on the shabby couch in the neighboring room. Every evening, while I dozed before sleep (throughout the pregnancy, it always came easily to me), he would jolt me to alertness with the clanging of the spike strip and vest on to the floor. He would step quietly towards the bed, fall to his knees, and place a large hand on my stomach, his downcast countenance fixed in an odd featureless concentration. I forgot that he wasn't the father on these occasions, the intensity of the care he took so overwhelming.

We kept these intimate moments to ourselves, surprised by our own weakness for the baby I had not even come up with a name for yet.

**-----**

My whole life, I had been raised on hummus and pineapple juice and the products of health food stores. I would have enjoyed the expression my mother would certainly have worn if she saw what I lived on. Dried soups, evaporated milk, frozen meals. Powdered lemonade if I could get my hands on it; beef jerky if I thought I was in need of protein, not willing to dine on the source of it The Family never grew tired of. The gas station was the extent of my cuisine.

I tried my best to remain hygienic. On most days, the water pressure in the houses was exasperatingly weak. Other days, it was nonexistent. I would have to drag myself to the water pump at the gas station, usually with Ruby. We would fill large plastic containers, balance them on our shoulders, and trudge at a slow pace back to the village. If Lizard was around, he'd meet us half way and relieve both of us of our loads.

Clothes, also, could be a problem. I circulated through three maternity dresses – the one I arrived in, the other two simply being of large stretchy material. If there was enough water, I rinsed out the two I wasn't wearing and pinned them to a seldom used clothes line, more to keep them from blooming mold spores than to dry them. Later, when I discovered what the clothesline was used for prior to my arrival, I threw out the dresses and hung clothes on the porch railing instead.

No others in the village seemed to bother with this. Undergarments were an unsolvable issue, and I often went without.

I had a lot of time on my hands. At the hottest part of the day, I sat by the cliffs (buttons unbuttoned, water bottle almost immediately dumped over my head), sandy and dusted in an ochre film. My light brown hair was bleached a streaky golden blonde by the sun, which I found to be much more attractive. To keep from sunburns, I tied a long aubergine scarf into my hair, overshadowing my face, and often wore an old, thin cardigan that was tolerable enough to wear in the stifling heat.

Many times, I was joined by one member of The Family or another, usually Lizard, who wasn't often confined to the limits of the town, like Big Brain or Big Mama. His greeting became, "What you doing?", a question I always provided an answer to.

"What you doing?"

"Burning a picture into the wood," I might respond, "with this magnifying glass."

"What you doing?"

"Making a doormat out of the extra clothespins."

"What you doing?"

"Checking for aloe in this cactus."

Or, perhaps I was caught up in nothingness, watching leaves of lanky, shriveled ferns dispersed on colorblocked stone. There was always something to see in the desert, whether or not there was anything at all in it.

When it grew dark, and I had been on my own for hours, I would walk, if only to see how far I could go before I was retrieved. Eventually, on the outskirts of my vision, I would begin to see shapes of men, dark and faceless. On the first of these occasions, Lizard sidled up to me after a time, and pointed to a distant grey creature.

"Coyote," he said.

"Dangerous?"

"When you sick."

"Or when you're vulnerable?" He nodded wordlessly, and led me back to the town, shotgun gripped in unforgiving hands.


	5. Chapter 5

A killing was quite the occasion in the test village. I don't mean to be vulgar, but I enjoyed it myself. I did not condone it, but I felt it was not my place to impose my own moralities. I never felt guilty, like I probably should have, about all the murders I was present for. Even my own friends, who I should have mourned longer than I did, didn't bother me as much as I wish it had. Which is not to say that I did not carry with me, every so often, a tight broiling pit of grief at the base of my throat.

Do you think me a horrid thing now? Am I so wicked? I had fallen in love with my life. Does that make sense? Either way, I will make no excuses for myself, but I will not apologize. One always finds it easy to forgive that which she cares for.

It was not the death I enjoyed – not at all. I stayed as far from that as was possible. It was more what each member of The Family derived from it that had me so at ease. Lizard and Pluto and Goggle became careless, and would go whole days without cruelty or contentiousness towards one another. Ruby was quite the scavenger – she would return from inside a trailer or SUV with mounds of jewelry and clothes. Always, she would present me with a share of it, which I accepted to keep from harming her fragile feelings, but never used, to at least honor the dead.

Through her, I acquired earrings of the Madonna in red, strings of melo shell, of lariat and ingot, of aquifer and taiga – things adorned with pendants of ancient earth, slice of abalone, trinkets of the Malabar coast, of spun stone. Geode rings, countless wedding bands, a dog tag or two. Watches, also, with straps of rosewood, gold chain, smoky green leather. I never wore them. They were put away, in a copper cloisonné tin, out of sight. There, I would not give in to temptation. I would keep the vow. Once, I nearly gave it up. A round grey tarnished thing - engraved with intricate details of leaves, hooked on a thick black ribbon. Locket-like in construction, I popped it open, and inside was a solid white block of fragrance, a strong scent of Lily of the Valley.

I buried it. I had to keep my hands to myself, I repeated; once, twice, many times. _Keep your hands to yourself. Let them scavenge, that's their way of doing things. But you don't have to._

Clothes, though, and food, I kept. I would need these things. I convinced myself it was different.

Whooping and shoving one another, they would drive the cars to the side of the crater, let it tip over the edge, and climb on top as it toppled downward – showering me in dirt and crinkling scintilla, so that I rubbed my eyes for minutes before I could keep them open again.

I ruminated, and came to the conclusion that some luxuries were worth the mild guilt that came with the indulgence. Sparkling French lemonade, dark raspberry chocolates, Spanish tempranillo, ginger beer, all foraged from trailers and the trunks of SUVs. I kept these for myself. After the baby was born, and I could slip away into the chilly night for just a little while, the heated wine was an unencumbered pleasure. The temperature, which dropped drastically after sundown, had a way of sneaking into your bones, and I had a way of evicting it.

And, of course, anything was worth witnessing Jupiter and Lizard falling down drunk. The sort of men who rarely drank, for an obvious reason – the unavailability of liquor – they became beyond tipsy rather easily.

It was for this reason the birth of the baby came so suddenly.

I sat in the driver's seat of a double-decker trailer home, the door open, my legs dangling over the side. I had to lean backwards to keep the weight of the baby from pulling me out of my seat and falling to the ground. Jupiter was lying on the rocks, staring upward, all things suspended in the glittering splendor of the night. Lizard stood before me, a half full bottle of vodka curled limply in his hands.

I felt restless, as if a rattle of rats had awoken the sinews, the nerves, and the veins. Paul McCartney sang through the speakers of the car, and Lizard seemed to be swinging his head to the music – though it may have just been the alcohol.

"What you thinking?" Lizard said, an obvious lilt in his voice.

"I was wondering what to name the baby," I answered, "And what color her eyes will be, and how she will grow up." It was a lie. I had though more selfish thoughts – of my own future. I wondered if I would always be there in the desert, with The Family. I wondered if I wanted to continue living in the manner that I did.

I had thought of Lizard, and the eternal rapture that seemed to reveal itself to him, in my face and breasts and body, however swollen it may have been. No man had ever stared at me like that – not the useless boyfriend who had gotten me this way, not any simpering boy who turned to me for whatever it is teenage boys want from teenage girls.

And I thought of how my common sense had absconded from me, departed secretly, when Lizard stepped on to the tires below me, rested his head on my belly, and said, "Let me be the daddy?"

I felt a surge of endearment towards him, and the rest of The Family. Not because of his request, particularly, but because I just felt so perfect right then. The darkness, and the intimacy, even despite the glowering teeth, the weatherworn, battle-scarred face, I knew that night I'd sleep under the darkness, curled up with him, and see, as Jupiter had seen, the glittering splendor suspended in the distance.

"Of course," I told him. He leaned forward, his teeth knocking against my throat, and I held on to his head. I felt him slipping before he did – his drunkenness so extensive.

I was dragged down with him, and yet fell more heavily. That is what triggered it so abruptly. My mother had told me to watch out for this – especially later in the pregnancy. If I fell, she said, the birth might begin earlier, and although I had been expecting the baby any minute, it still crept up unexpectedly, and shocked me with contractions.

I panicked. I could see, with unprecedented clarity, that I would be delivering this baby on my own. The test village was miles away, our vehicles' tires were destroyed, and Jupiter had passed out ages before. Lizard was there, but he did not have the presence of mind to assist me properly.

To his credit, it did not take him long to sober up after my first real tortured scream.

I was lucky that I came away from it unharmed, with the baby healthy and bawling its head off. A relatively short labor, it could have been considered an easy birth. But then again, what birth is ever easy?

But don't let me sugarcoat it. I had no intentions of becoming pregnant ever again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** VERY IMPORTANT NOTE HERE! Sort of. The characters that will appear in this chapter and the next are not of my creation. They're going to be in The Hills Have Eyes 2, which I believe is coming out some time next month. I obviously haven't seen it, so I used my imagination a bit to decide what exactly they're like (some of their names, though, make it pretty straightforward). I'm sure by the end of that movie they'll all be dead, but I'm working with the idea that there is no sequel. Next chapter, there will be some mentioning of another character, who I HAVE invented. Just keep that in mind.

**-----**

I'm sure you know how it goes – with babies and how they make people act. I had never seen Pluto so enthralled, Jupiter so fatherly, or Lizard so gentle. Ruby never smiled so often, and Big Brain even seemed pleased to have woken up another morning. Big Mama was extraordinarily helpful – I suppose children were her specialty, being that she had plenty of them. Cyst and Goggle chuckled when they saw how often she was passed between me and the members of The Family.

The birth even warranted a visit from The Extended Family.

I suppose my presence was explained to them somewhat – to Hades, Hansel, Chameleon, and Grabber. But I hadn't known of their existence, let alone of their imminent arrival. I was breastfeeding Pauline (oh, did I not mention this already? She was named for my sister, who I promised, during one of our rare, and admittedly drunken, fond moments that I'd name my first daughter after her. I was fifteen, and she twenty-three. Not long afterward, she discovered she was infertile – so there never would be another Netta, like she had promised me). It was a surprisingly cool day; meaning, really, that the heat was not of scorching standard. It seemed as perfect as any a time to feed Pauline.

I had taken her away from my chest to study her – the way her eyes and nose were most certainly her father's, the jaw and lips and bone structure same as mine. I'm sure he meant to do it – to creep up on me. I had not covered myself entirely, and suddenly Chameleon was there, and the others not far off.

My mother used to complain of heart murmurs – and I felt her discomfort then. The distinctly metronome-like quality to the missing of the beat, and the quick double-pulse that follows it.

I gasped hoarsely, and practically jumped to my feet. It was not easy, readjusting my dress while keeping Pauline in place. I wound up bolting inside and colliding with Lizard, still scantily clad, and breathlessly exclaiming, "There- there are people out there!"

Needless to say, he got the wrong idea into his head, and left the house prepared for a confrontation, to find his cousin or second cousin, or however Chameleon was related to him, laughing uproariously on the porch.


	7. Chapter 7

I'm not sure if any of them trusted me completely. That night, as we all sat together in the house that belonged to Jupiter and Big Mama, Hades asked, "Who the daddy? Lizard?"

I shook my head no.

He looked surprised. "Ain't Pluto?"

Lizard laughed, to Pluto's embarrassment.

Hades grinned whimsically, and said, "Ain't Jupiter's neither, if Big Mama's got any say in it. And she sure ain't no little Goggle or Cyst." With a sly edge to his voice, he concluded, "Baby must be Big Brain's." To this, even Big Brain chuckled, and I turned a magnificent scarlet.

It was later I discovered how Hades really felt. I had taken the baby to bed, and I lay down with her as I waited for her to find sleep. All but Lizard and Hades remained in the neighboring house, and the two of them spoke of private matters in the next room.

The walls were old and thin, and I could hear every word.

"How long she been here, Lizard?" Hades asked. "Here in town?"

"'Bout six months."

"Ain't nobody lookin' for 'er?"

"Dunno."

"Don't seem smart, havin' 'er here. What you do if somebody come for 'er?"

"We wasn't plannin' on her leaving."

I imagined Hades pausing, perhaps nodding as he fully grasped the situation at hand, his heavy countenance bobbing up and down. What he said next was uttered almost beneath the notice of my hearing. "'Cause you want 'er here for yourself, _that_ why, ain't it?"

Silence, and then, "She ain't going, Hades. Let it lie."

"Don't that baby got a daddy'll try to find her? If he come for 'er, what you plan on doin'?"

There was silence, and I knew Lizard was snarling at Hades, though we both knew he had a point. I'd already thought about all the parents who would have reported their children missing – Christian's, Peter's, and Isabelle's, my own included. As far as they knew, we could all still be alive, even if it had been nearly half a year. I recalled the face of my mother, and cringed with guilt. She would be reporting the disappearance of her unborn grandchild, too. I cast the thought from my mind; that woman _would not_ unearth my resolve.

"I'd kill him," Lizard finally answered, and I believed him. Hades laughed mockingly, and said, "Then she gon' wanna leave. You kill 'er, too?"

Of course, Hades was not the one I ultimately wound up disputing with. I enjoyed his company, actually, and he was far from unintelligent. He was really quite fond of me, and gave me the nickname Little Mama (any pound I might have gained from the pregnancy had been worked off by my countless trips to the water pump, in almost obsessive compulsive efforts to keep Pauline spotless).

But it seemed it was always he who told me things I had no desire to hear.

A group of soon-to-be victims had arrived in the desert unexpectedly, and had the entire family anticipating what was apparently a _commendable partnership_ between Pluto and Hansel (no, I was not applauding the circumstances myself). This wasn't such a surprise, being that they were so similar in thoughtfulness and stature.

I was alone with Hades and Cyst as The Family departed, both reminiscing about their more wild, younger days. They spoke of when they, with Jupiter and Neptune, a name I didn't recognize, were a better _team_, even, than Lizard, Pluto and Goggle.

"Did the families live together once?" I asked. Hades appeared confused, and turned to Cyst. "You never tell 'er?" he said.

"More'n the story'n that. Bad stories," Cyst answered, and shook his head.

"Little Mama got to hear," he countered. "Dangerous if she don't."

"Go ahead," Cyst told him, though there was reproach in his voice.

Hades turned to address me, allocating all his attention toward my face. "There's three families," he said. "Jupiter's, Neptune's, and my own. We split."

"Why?" I asked, and shushed Pauline, who was beginning to get fussy, reaching up and swatting at my chin. I removed a swatch of my hair from her tiny fists.

"Neptune's always bad. Got bad sons, too. We was all together, after our homes got destroyed. There was two mining towns, and two mines. Neptune's kin got worse; they forget how to talk, some of 'em. Bad to our own children and parents. Got babies there whose parents got the same mama. Ain't right. Got inbred, and stupid, an' we left 'fore they harm our women and children."

"You got to know," Hades continued. "'Cause Jupe's been wondrin'. Says you walk at night, and some days Lizard and Goggle lose track a' you. Lizard say once he got to make you turn back, 'cause he saw a coyote. Don't go that far, Little Mama. Coyote's prowl around Neptune's mine 'cause they're always getting still babies. They leave 'em out, and the coyotes eat 'em up. They ain't even half-frightened of humans no more, and if you get hurt they'll hunt you, supposin' Neptune's sons don't themselves."

My blood went silver, and tumbled through the veins. I sat Pauline on my knees, for fear of dropping her, my arms seemingly debilitated. I could see the concern on Cyst's face as my breath whistled through shaky lips

He paused, and I knew what he meant to say next would unsettle me further. "And if they see you from that mine, don' think they won' kill you, or worse. Neptune don' care no more about Jupiter and my kin. Dug up some of our women's stillbirths, got away with 'em. If you see anyone out there you don' know, you _get_. And you keep Lizard with you – he won' let you get hurt. Not you or that pretty little baby of yours."

We heard the calling and loud voices, and knew that Pluto and Hansel had been overtly successful. Lizard came through the door, yelling obscenities, presumably in excitement. "Fuck!" he shouted. "_Goddam!_"

He plucked Pauline from my arms, and rocked her excessively, in exaggerated fashion, until her smile gave way to gums.

"Damn, Lizard – put her _down_," Cyst said, getting to his feet; a struggle ensued, but Lizard was too quick. Hades laughed, and joined Cyst in retrieval of Pauline, only half-trying.

"_Lizard_," I said, my tone a warning.

He handed her back to me, and his eyes said, _Just messing around._

_Just messing around_.

The rest of The Family was stepping inside when I took his hand and led him away. I glanced back to see Jupiter staring after us knowingly, as Hades asked quietly, "What they doing?"

Ruby giggled as I shut the door.

Pauline, now very much awake, blinked at me. First, I would have to put her to sleep.

As I did often, I sang her a poem I remembered from my childhood, set to a misguided tune I invented as I went along.

"_The sun was shining on the sea,_

_Shining with all his might_

_He did his very best to make_

_The billows smooth and bright-_

_And this was odd, because it was_

_The middle of the night."_

I lay her down in the shanty crib, it's creaking startling her. Her eyes swung open, became teary, and I went on with the lullaby.

"_The moon was shining sulkily._

_Because she thought the sun_

_Had got not business to be there_

_After the day was done-_

'_It's very rude of him,' she said,_

'_To come and spoil the fun!_'"

Behind me, Lizard set the spike strip down on the dresser, staring at my back, willing me to turn and face him. I cringed as it scraped against the mottled wood.

"_The sea was wet as wet could be,_

_The sands were dry as dry._

_You could not see a cloud, because_

_No cloud was in the sky;_

_No birds were flying overhead-_

_There were no birds to fly._

"_The Walrus and the Carpenter_

_Were walking close at hand;_

_They wept like anything to see_

_Such quantities of sand-_

'_If this were only cleared away,'_

_They said, 'it would be grand!_'

"'_If seven maids with seven mops_

_Swept it for half a year,_

_Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,_

'_That they could get it clear?'_

'_I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,_

_And shed a bitter tear._"

I looked back at the sound of the material of his vest sliding down his shoulder, like the hiss of a radiator. I smiled at him, so that he knew my intentions were as he thought they'd be, and the vest came off more hurriedly. It had been a long time coming.

"'_O Oysters, come and walk with us!'_

_The Walrus did beseech._

'_A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,_

_Along the briny beach;_

_We cannot do with more than four_

_To give a hand to each.'_

"_The eldest Oyster looked at him,_

_But never a word he said;_

_The eldest Oyster winked his eye,_

_And shook his heavy head-_

_Meaning to say he did not choose_

_To leave the oyster bed._

"_But four young Oysters hurried up,_

_All eager for the treat;_

_Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,_

_Their shoes were clean and neat-_

_And this was odd, because you know,_

_They hadn't any feet._"

I could _feel_ Lizard approaching me. Outside, the wind played a dreadful cantata – boldly outspoken, in attempts to repeat the refrain.

"_Four other Oysters followed them,_

_And yet another four;_

_And thick and fast they came at last,_

_And more, and more, and more-_

_All hopping through the frothy waves,_

_And scrambling to the shore._

"_The Walrus and the Carpenter_

_Walked on a mile or so,_

_And then they rested on a rock_

_Conveniently low-_

_And all the little Oysters stood_

_And waited in a row_."

He came up behind me, pulling at the dress I wore. It was grey and clingy, tapered to the knees, cinched inward between my breasts. I stilled his hand as Pauline's eyelashes fluttered, and instead he traced my cheekbones with the pad of his thumb, down across the line of my jaw.

"'_The time has come,' the Walrus said,_

'_To talk of many things:_

_Of shoes- and ships- and sealing wax-_

_Of cabbages- and kings-_

_And why the sea is boiling hot-_

_And whether pigs have wings.'_

"'_But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,_

'_Before we have our chat;_

_For some of us are out of breath,_

_And all of us are fat!'_

'_No hurry!' said the Carpenter._

_They thanked him much for that_."

Her eyes grew heavy, and finally shut. She faced the opposite wall, but I was not satisfied that she was engulfed in sleep. She had to hibernate for the night, throughout a self-imposed winter.

"'_A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,_

'_Is what we chiefly need:_

_Pepper and vinegar besides_

_Are very good indeed-_

_Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,_

_We can begin to feed.'_

"'_But not on us!' the Oysters cried,_

_Turning a little blue._

'_After such kindness, that would be_

_A dismal thing to do!'_

'_The night is fine,' the Walrus said._

'_Do you admire the view?'_"

Slowly, I unfurled the aubergine scarf from my hair and turned to face him. I clutched the crib with both hands, my elbows bent, as does the legs of an egret. I let the dress fall to the floor. He gripped my shoulders, squeezed as Pauline stirred slightly in her sleep.

"'_It was kind of you to come!_

_And you are very nice!'_

_The Carpenter said nothing but_

'_Cut us another slice:_

_I wish you were not quite so deaf-_

_I've had to ask you twice!'_

"'_It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,_

'_To play them such a trick,_

_After we've brought them out so far,_

_And made them trot so quick!'_

_The Carpenter said nothing but_

'_The butter's spread too thick!'_"

All spaces were filled – the round of my breasts seeping into his rib cage, his hands spread wide at the small of my back. As I've known it to before, the heat pressed its belly up against the door.

"'_I weep for you,' the Walrus said:_

'_I deeply sympathize.'_

_With sobs and tears he sorted out_

_Those of the largest size,_

_Holding his pocket-handkerchief_

_Before his streaming eyes._

"'_O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,_

'_You've had a pleasant run!_

_Shall we be trotting home again?'_

_But answer came there none-_

_And this was scarcely odd, because_

_They'd eaten every one._"

I could not get close enough, could not think enough. We stumbled against the bed, a strange flurry of linen and mattress springs. His hair, shockingly soft against my skin, mouth twisted and gnarled. Shoulder blades crisscrossed beneath my fingers, sun burnt and cobwebbed, stiff with exertion. His fingers tightened on my hips, and my knees trembled.

From the next room, we could hear laughter, most likely at our expense. It was then that it happened; I knew that I would never leave this place. I no longer thought of my mother and stepsister as my family. I knew that I belonged to _The_ Family, and that I loved them best. It was as if my life before the town had fast-forwarded through eighteen years, and ended decades ago. Mom and Old Pauline seemed now like friends I once spent all my time with, then scarcely knew anymore, and almost never thought about.

And I was deeply sorry for this, but not for very long.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Alright, because of a few extraordinarily generous (and one very suggestive) reviewer(s), I've just begun writing the sorta-sequel to this. "The Cradle to the Grave", of course, is farfarfar from being done, but I already have it all written down in a very secret, safe place (in a notebook, under my pillow). Just thought I'd let you know, in case any of you were planning on banging down my doors and demanding one (damn, I _wish_), I've saved you the trouble.

It was such an odd feeling, this utopia in dystopia. I loved the security that came with lying late at night with somebody beside me. I couldn't remember ever being so content, so pleased with how everything was working out. Soon, Hades, Chameleon, Hansel, and Grabber left, and I was on my own once more with The Family.

I turned nineteen, and though there was not much for me to do to celebrate it Ruby did lead me to the gas station to show me her present – the joints that branched out from the wooden poles surrounding the area had been decorated with bottles, that, when caught in the light, really were very beautiful. Fred came out to meet us, more to be polite then out of any real motivation to say, "Happy Birthday." I made him nervous. A man whose luxuries included being solitary and at ease, he tolerated me only because he could never be assured that I wouldn't leave one day and tell the first cops I saw that he had assisted in the murders of more than enough people to land him in prison for life or worse. It would have been more convenient for him if I were dead. Nonetheless, he smiled convincingly enough so that his cheer may have been legitimate.

Back in the town, I learned that Lizard had stolen, killed, skinned, and managed to cook one of Fred's chickens over a fire. Ruby and he looked quite pleased with themselves, and Pauline sat on Lizard's knee, looking appalled, with a little white feather in the palm of her hand. Not sure what she had witnessed, I thought, _Thanks God she won't remember this further down the road._ They'd dressed her up in a Sunday-best sort of outfit I didn't recognize, and had her wrapped around a teddy bear that was larger than she was.

The darkness wrought its ghost about the cliffs, each separate dying ember illuminated, enhancing the sepia glow on the high curve of Pauline's cheek. It was an evening of infinite midnight, darker than it should have been at seven. Ruby disappeared from our company; she is, and will always be, someone who is always leaving but has never fully arrived.

Lizard stayed with me. He swung Pauline from the seat of his shoulders to the depths of the nadir, among gravel and rock, where little feet can traipse about with mommy's larger ones. The rocking chair wept beneath me, the firelight popped and ebbed away, and Pauline had drifted from us within Lizard's arms. Strange, how human he could be, how delicate he knew she was.

I caught my reflection in a window, saw how tendril and limb-like my hair had become, twisting itself into almost dreadlock consistency. The skin on my lips chapped and tore, my eyes larger than ever. I saw, in my face, the glowing extremity of life on the edge of itself.

And so thin! I should have had my period back by then, but I expected I wouldn't until I'd gained more weight. The shock of real food had unsettled me.

For the first time in ages, I looked at Lizard's face, and was shocked at the teeth gone awry, the blue-glass intensity of such defection. I was on my feet, off the rotting wood of the porch, fumbling past whatever terror had possessed me.

"Where you going?" he called after me. I responded with epic silence, though in my mind I shrieked, Away!_ Away!_

It was not that I went so far; it was that they had overstepped their boundaries. The bristling, stand-on-end jowls were what I saw first. The mouth, which almost compelled me to say, "Oh, what large teeth you have."

A coyote. My pulse gasped and murmured when I realized I had to get away from there.

It seemed, fleetingly, to consider my death. I watched the idea enter its mind, wrinkle its brow. _I don't have the time for this,_ it thought, and it forgot me, the devil flew out of its eyes. Perhaps, it knew it could not wreap the afflictions others could, and simply loped away.

And, then, a stone was thrown from behind, aimed at the beast's haunches.

It missed.

What do the starts conceal in the peril?

Goggle was the first name that came to me as the terrible sight became apparent. Shrouded in absence of light, I saw only that he was small and grey and bent. No, Goggle's jaws were not unhinged, his tongue not red and lolling and visible, even, through skin. It was as if the bottom of my stomach had fallen away, as his eyes cracked my skull in two.

Hades would have told me to run.

But so quickly he lept at me! The force of it knocked the air from my lungs, played a xylophone beat along my rib cage. I arched my back and breathed in, my throat struggling. His hands grabbed my neck and squeezed, so that I felt my veins would pop, senses leave me. I forgot everything until then. I forgot that he was human, and could be fought.

My shoes saved my life. I wore them to scale the desert; huge, worn construction boots Lizard gave to me. Unevenly large. I kicked, and they upended him. I took the time to ignore the need to sputter for breath, and took off. I ran fucking fast, too. I knew his twisted frame would not be so quick. In the not so far distance, a pinprick of fire burned before the porch.

"Lizard!" I screamed, as two long separate syllables.

I was thrown to the ground, and landed harshly. Blood bubbled from a stone's cut, and now two faces growled and heckled me.

"Neptune?" I said, thinking I might be saved by the knowledge of the name. They dragged me to my feet, only to strike me hard across the chin. Searing pain, and then I spat blood, and it splattered, dripping wetly.

"I ain't Neptune, whore," one said.

I was not helpless. Had they been more sane I might have escaped – as it stands, I made a mess of them. It was as if my mind had become stuck on the notion that _I could not die on my nineteenth birthday._ That _I could not die,_ and not have this be explainable to my child. And, though I thought it guiltily, I _could not_ let Pauline become a man-eater. It simply could not be any other way. Death seemed so implausible, something that just didn't happen.

They were so vicious, so unmatchable in drive and unrelentlessness. For every bruised rib and kicked in head, I'd been delivered more damage. I was being dragged away. My eyes no longer focused – they were invaded by pooling blood. I choked on sand, a pointed rock had been lodged in my side, and I heard the snapping of bone. They'd begun to peel away clothes, as if by a blade, in long battered strips.

I could not see. It was by sound I could hear salvation. Not so far, the thudding of footsteps sounded, the humming of the tune I'd matched to "the Walrus and the Carpenter." Lizard, with Pauline. He was not hurried. Could he not hear us?

I realized I'd not made noise in minutes.

"Lizard!" I screamed, though this time it was a scrambled, pitiable cry. But he heard.

I was not struck again. They could see him now. I was only able to lift myself up because the thought of their eyes on Pauline got me panicking. I stumbled away, and they didn't stop me.

The absolute ruin of her mother must have been acknowledged by even Pauline's young mind. She shrieked before she exploded into tears, and I had to sit on the ground to hold her. Lizard ran his hand over my hair as I tried to shush Pauline, looking shell-shocked – perhaps more than I, even.

"N-Netta?" he said.

"You got some fucking girl with ya', Lizard? Got her all knocked up? What wrong with you?" the older one said. The other, with the unhinged jaw, and fingers I had smashed, and heard crack defiantly, looked about himself quickly. I'd torn his cheek, and now it bled profusely. He staggered in place.

"What the fuck'd you do to her?" Lizard growled.

"Not what'cha think," the older man chuckled. "But I was just getting' to that." His laugh was haunting, eerily similar to Jupiter's.

There was a flurry of metal, and the spike strip struck the man across the chest. Without a weapon, they were both subject to Lizard's will. Before long, the strip was wrapped around the man's neck, and the throat was torn. I hid Pauline from this, I turned her head away, but I watched with some relish. The more injured man limped towards Lizard, only to be hit, audibly, across his flaggoned face. I turned away as his head was slammed against the rocks over and over again.

When the violence was done, he lifted Pauline and I gently, and carried us home.

For the trouble they caused us later, I wish now it could've been me who killed them.


	9. Chapter 9

Their names were Saturn and Crypt, and they were Neptune's sons. Lizard didn't tell me this at the time, for my own piece of mind, I suppose. I could hardly talk, could not bring myself to let Pauline go. I sat with her in the bathtub, the blood and dirt staining the water a cloudy, opaque mess. I could not breathe heavily without cringing from the pain in my side. I spread my fingers over my rib cage, bony and frail. They felt hollow, birdlike, without substance. A twisted knot – I was sure more than one had been broken, but there wasn't anything I could do to fix that. I'd cut my gums and tongue against my own teeth, and bruises shaped like fingertips appeared blue and purple along the skin of my neck.

I got lucky. I could have been killed.

I knew, though, that there would be consequences for what had happened. Lizard kept himself composed around me, but I knew by his graveness, by the shaky way he peered out of the window blinds, by the way he shook Jupiter awake after he's carried Pauline and me to the bathtub. I knew that there would be some for of retaliation.

Lizard and I didn't sleep that night. No matter how forcefully my throbbing head compelled me to shut my eyes, I stayed up as Pauline slept unknowingly, and Lizard watched warily the desert.

For days we were uncertain. Goggle, Jupiter, Lizard, Cyst, and Pluto sat stationed like tin soldiers all throughout the town, anticipating something awful. They would not let Ruby or I go to the gas station for food or water, and we had to scavenge any leftovers that remained. Those days, we were always hungry, and I was concerned that if I could not eat properly than neither could Pauline. Eventually, my milk began to run dry, and we had to send Lizard and Goggle to retrieve food. The rest of us held our breath until they returned.

_So strange,_I thought, _that former friends and family could break into such all-out war. _How could it be that there was so little kinship between them that there was need for protection from these distant relatives? I knew that now I might be a target of some sort, and this frightened me in a way that was so infecting it was almost microbial, almost nonexistent.

Meanwhile, there was no improvement in the swelling of my face or the sharpness in my side, and I was concerned for myself. I could not remember how it felt not to be worried. Lizard sat with me at night, as I twisted in bed, unable to find a position that suited my injuries.

"Are we in a lot of trouble?" I asked him, in that gloomy tone teenagers are so accustomed to.

He nodded, and said, "You and Ruby got to stay inside."

"What will they do to Ruby?"

"Same they almost did to you."

I flinched. "This is all my fault."

"No. They get too close, act too bad. Never liked us, anyway. Woulda' happen, sometime." I nodded, and chose to believe the half-lie. I knew, if it hadn't been for me, they would have continued to live on the edge of each other, and it would have been as it had always been. I was responsible for the dishevelment, the reshuffling of the deck. I chose to sleep, to avoid the guilt I was prone to, to avoid the careful eyes that accused me. I felt, then, that there are two kinds of people in life: those who disappoint, and those who are disappointed.

I was so . . . disappointing.

&&&&&&

**A/N:** This was the last short chapter, I promise! From now on, they will always be a MINIMUM of 1000 words. This one had to be the length it is, because the way the story is written it was the only way to sensibly separate it. Hope you enjoyed it, and review away (I do _love_ a good review).


	10. Chapter 10

It was not quite two and a half weeks before they arrived. It was early in the morning, just after dark, when Goggle spotted them. From the outskirts of the town, he saw them by the opening of the mine, and ran to alert the rest of us. I was startled awake when he knocked his knee against the doorframe and hissed, "Ow, ow, ow."

"Who's there?" I said, and shot out of bed. The back of his head, and the funny black hat he always wore, fell through the door, and I was relieved. But not for very long.

He pointed out the window, and said, "Neptune."

Instantaneously, there was a wrenching in my gut, and I instinctively stepped backwards, fumbling against the crib. Pauline and Lizard woke up; she rubbed her eyes with her tiny fists, and he squinted and curled his lip, vexed by the sunlight.

"What?" Lizard said, in a hazy morning voice.

"Neptune's outside," I choked out, though already my chest was heaving, and the blood rushed scorching to my fingertips. Lizard threw the bed sheets off, tumbled on to the floor, and grabbed the vest and spike strip. They left the room, and I could hear them rush out of the house, the door banging behind them. I hesitated before grabbing Pauline roughly, and following them outside. From the next house, I could hear Lizard yelling, "The guns! Where're the guns?"

Once more, they were outside, the rest of The Family fidgety and flitting about, rumpled and half dressed from sleep. Between Lizard, Pluto, Cyst, Goggle, and Jupiter, there were three guns, and all the motion had me worried for Pauline's safety. Jupiter turned to Big Mama and said, "Go to Big Brain. Shut the doors."

Ruby and I followed her there. Methodically, we locked the doors and drew the blinds over the windows, Big Brain's eyes following us as we circled the room. We flocked to the center, where he sat, and kneeled on to the floor. We strained to hear, but no sound penetrated those walls, and of what went on outdoors we had no knowledge.

Eventually, there were voices, but nothing distinct. They were at first bland and distilled, as if in reluctant acknowledgement. Occasionally, there was the scuffing of feet against the cracked earth, and the tangy metal clank that comes of readjusting your grip on a gun. I had almost calmed myself when the voices became raised and hostile. Ruby and I took each other's hands, pressed our fingers against palms, and bit down to keep from, I don't know, screaming. From pulling out our hair, from throwing furniture through the steely glass of the windows.

Lizard's voice was prominent, and as well a foreign voice, and then Jupiter's. The unknown's tone was wicked and matter-of-fact, and I was racked with the most horrid nightmares of whatever terms they considered, of whatever was said that had Lizard so without regard for silence. Pauline sat between Ruby and I, and stared up at me. I tried to smile, to tell her, "It's okay, sweetie." But I could only reveal glancing teeth, and could not even hear myself reassure her.

"I love you," I managed, and she wrapped her chilly hand about my fingers.

Again, there came raised voices, and a ragged stomping of feet that came hurried towards the front door. In my panic, I gave Ruby's large sweatshirt a second's consideration, and pulled her to me. I did not know if Neptune and his own knew of Pauline, but if they did not I would do my best to keep it that way. I slid Pauline across the floor, under the sweatshirt, where her body made almost no impression under the fabric. "Get down, down," I told Ruby, and she complied, her head and knees and stomach to the floor, hood hiding her hair, fingers interlocked over that. Big Mama moved to stand before them, and I threw myself to my feet.

They were all inside now, but had yet to reach us. Big Brain, frozen in place, said nothing, only his expression spoke of worry that equaled mine. Our eyes met, and I told him, "They cannot touch me if they do not touch Pauline."

I was not as strong as my words implied, but I was momentarily empowered. I kept myself at an angle, and prepared for the boom that would come with the sight of them.

And it came. They crashed through the door, the locks thrown aside, and the shock of it had me at a loss for breath. He was not the largest, nor the most horrid, but it was Neptune who frightened me most. His eyes infected, countenance chilled, and I was inhabited by the savagery. He stripped me of – something, and I was consumed of the loss of the thing I was not sure I'd ever had.

He came to me slowly, and took my hair in one hand, so that I almost thought he would let it tangle itself through his fingers, and leave. He yanked me forward, and though I fought and yelled I was slammed against the doorframe, the broken bones screeching to my head and I only only only hoped he would drag me out of the house and Pauline could be something that did not exist.

The desert was incandescent, a sharp lecherous color that blended with the sky, had it not been for the defiant oranges and reds of the canyons and peaks. Lizard popped out of the setting, as does any mean in a formless blank room, taking me by the waist and pulling me away from Neptune.

"That the bitch you killed 'em for, Lizard?" Neptune asked, in a tone that was too reasonable to have any thought behind it. "Pretty thing. Couldn' keep your hands off?"

His son behind him whistled, and I could sense how this grated at Lizard. I was curious as to what Jupiter must have had to say or do to keep Lizard's hot temper from getting the better of him. He placed a hand possessively at the small of my back, unseen by Neptune.

The remaining son, whose face was extraordinarily tumid, and whose left arm ended at the wrist, the other halfway between the shoulder and the elbow, exuded lasciviousness. I found myself recoiling even at the distance I was from him. His nephew appeared unwell, suffering from nystagmus, and also the least tamed. He and Lizard stared each other down, and his sudden shuddering had me thinking he would pounce at us. From Neptune's wintry skin and utter ferocity, it was not hard to guess which family had been most affected by the radioactive fallout.

"We got a deal," Jupiter said. "Be best if you left."

"Yeah, we got a deal," Neptune echoed, and to my infinite relief he motioned for the other two to follow him. Their departure was slow, and for good measure the one who's face was swollen spat at my feet, so that I had to step backward to avoid the spray.

I gave him a look so withering I could see doubt flicker unmistakably across his face.

&&&&&&

The terms in which they'd agreed were not easy for me to be carried off into the sunset by and live happily ever after with, let alone to simply embrace, the way Jupiter mirthfully did. He said we were lucky to have gotten away with it, but I could see no fortune in the promise of their presence. Only unease, and possible deception, was apparent.

Evidently, Neptune had forgiven the death of his elder sons in return for what could mean survival for the rest of his mine-inhabiting clan. Meaning, any hunting that would occur would be an excursion shared with Neptune and Mercury and Preach. Lizard as well did not accept this readily, influenced by some deep-sown hatred he harbored for Preach, the one who could not balance nor keep himself still.

I was told this, along with Big Brain, Big Mama, and Ruby, in the room in which the locks had so effectively hindered Neptune's progress. Pauline's extraction from under Ruby's sweatshirt was met with an uneven gap-toothed smile, not so unlike Ruby's, and the clapping of hands. I thought, _At least someone is amused by this._

"How could you agree to that, Jupiter?" I complained. "They want to kill me."

"Would've tried," he said, borderline angrily. "But we got deal."

"How do you – how do you know they're not just going to ambush you or shoot you or something in the desert?"

"I don't," he said, and grinned at my aghast expression. I sat down on the windowsill, my head in my hands, as he left the room. Ruby took my hand, ran a finger down my palm, and said, "Don't want nobody to get hurt, neither."

Lizard reached for me, arm spindly as fish scales, and I smiled faintly, though there was no warmth in his gaze. I felt that he was angrier than I, certainly more indignant, and I took his hand.

"I take Pauline?" Ruby asked, and I nodded, though I would have liked to keep her with me. "Just stay inside, okay?" I told her, and with that she took her into her own room, where there were toys from when she had been younger.

Lizard led me outdoors, and we sat on the porch, my head on his lap. As I became more bleary-eyed, the landscape seeped into a pointillist state, until finally I shut my eyes. I did not open them again until much later in the day. I was unmoved, and Lizard still sat with me, frozen in his solitary stance; eyes not on me, nor on anything at all.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** This chapter is cutting it pretty close to the 1000 word margin, but whatever. After this chapter, we're going to speed ahead into the future, so say goodbye to baby Pauline and hello to toddler Pauline. Review, please. It gives me something to do while I try to avoid real life (ha ha, nah I'm not _that _hopeless.)

It was not long before Fred radioed us and said he'd sent a group of tourists down our road; mere days after the confrontation. In turn, Jupiter contacted Neptune, and they appeared in the town hours afterward. They'd no weapons themselves, but to my understanding they had little need of them.

As Lizard left to join them, his face plastered in grimness, I could not help but feel this would be the last I'd ever see of him. I was convinced they'd be double-crossed, killed and left to rot in the desert. Lizard, especially, seemed vulnerable. It had been he, after all, who killed Saturn and Crypt.

My breath felt hot in my throat as I struggled to think of something to say, something that would make his leaving okay.

"Wait," I said, brushing his elbow. He turned and faced me. "Please, I–".

I could not find the words. He grinned precariously, took my hands and twirled me a la ballroom. He wrapped his arms solidly around my hips, pulled me close, and said, in as quiet a voice I've ever heard from him, "I come back. Promise."

I was released, and he walked off without turning again. Fleetingly, I caught Preach's eyes on me, but he averted them quickly, and kicked a stone from his path.

When they'd each disappeared from sight, I returned inside, retreating to the bedroom. I wept, with Pauline lying beside me on the bed. She patted my eyelids, as if to keep them from leaking. The hours 'til nightfall were endless, each minute further proof that they would never return. Ruby entered, a bowl of soup she'd heated on a salvaged hot plate balanced between her hands. I thanked her, and rubbed my eyes with the sleeves of my cardigan, in vain attempts to disguise my bouts of misery, though I'm sure she'd known all day that I'd hidden myself in the room to cry.

"Oh, Ruby," I said miserably. "What are you going to do with me?" She didn't answer, nor did she speak for ages. Finally, while I considered actually eating, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Who Pauline's daddy?"

Slightly taken aback, I cocked my head to the side, contemplating my answer. "A boy I didn't know long," I said. "Marcus was his name."

"Did you love him?"

I thought before I answered, more because I felt it an odd question than any inability to think up an honest reply. I said, "No. I didn't even like him all that much, now that I think about it. Especially now. Why?"

"Just askin'." I stared at her quizzically while she tucked Pauline's hair behind her ears, wondering why she'd waited until now to ask, and what exactly she was getting at.

I understood when she asked, "D'ya love Lizard?"

Again, I took time to answer. As a preteen, and throughout most of my high school years, I had scorned all things cliché. But I'm not much of a liar, certainly not for the sake of teenage scorn, and I spoke truthfully when I told her I did.

"Good," she said. "You stay forever?"

I smiled, genuinely touched, and told her, "As long as I live." Until almost dusk, she sat with me, the worry no longer so extraordinarily overwhelming. The fright, which had been so daunting, slyly ebbed away, so that I hardly noticed it. She succeeded in distracting me from myself, and I was so thankful I could hardly voice this gratefulness. At the brink of morning, ruddy tires sounded pitifully, flapping against rock. We were both half-asleep, Pauline long gone, but I still sprang up and tore through the house, overturning a coffee table in my hurry.

I ran to meet him as he stepped out from inside the car. He was unusually ragged, his neck sweaty, eyes dull. Never before had they returned to the town with a car, and the uncommon circumstances did not please me. This did not, however, keep me from literally leaping at him. I grabbed his shoulders and hoisted myself up, my legs about his torso. I tilted his chin towards my face, and said, in mock vehemence, "You had me sick to_ death_ with worry."

He grinned doggedly, and I kissed him (this was not something I did often – it was awkward; I'm sure you can tell why I understandably did not enjoy it). I noticed his hand hovered above my shoulder, not willing to touch me. I took his wrist, curious, and saw a splotch of black blood pooling in the folds of his glove.

"Are you hurt?"

Guiltily, he said, "No."

Carefully, I pulled the glove away from his fingers, trying to keep from touching whoever's blood it was, and threw it over his shoulder. It landed before Preach's feet, and once again I accidentally met eyes with him, though now it was me who averted my gaze, and he who continued to stare.

I turned to Lizard, and he looked away, as if he were a dog who would be punished for bringing the mess of the outside world to my doorstep. I swallowed, and then whispered in his ear, "I love you."

He gave me an older man's look, a doubting "Are you sure?" furrowing of the eyebrows. I repeated it, my tone fierce yet still quiet. I would have laughed at my own gravitas had I been more sure of myself. He ran his thumb along my brow, and carried me indoors. At the sight of Ruby, he hesitated, then woke her gently. She looked at him questioningly, then delightedly, before he led her back to her own room in the other house, a still-sleeping Pauline clutched tightly in her arms.

He returned more somber, and stood quietly in the doorway before I brought him to me with the peeling away of my shirt.


	12. Chapter 12

I wish, now, to make you aware of the time that elapsed. Months coalesced into a year, and then more, in a manner similar to that of colors rinsed from a paintbrush, transcending into something else entirely within the sand-blown catacombs of a glass jar. Pauline, and Ruby as well, grew older and changed significantly. Visits from Hades and his lot were not rare, and Pauline even made friends. Owl, a boy whose only deformity was a pair of large startling eyes, and not much older than Pauline, became her fondest companion. She was three when she told me, "Mommy, he's my boyfriend."

"Does he know that, sweetie?" I asked.

"Nuh-uh," she answered. "Not yet."

I laughed without laughing, and she ran back to play with him.

Big Mama was pregnant not long after Pauline's first birthday, and for the first time had twins. One, the stronger of the two, was a girl named Aries, whose face twisted and bulged in odd places, but was testimony to the lesser degree of deformity through the generations. The other, a boy named Capricorn, was discolored somewhat, and mentally ill equipped, but he and his sister grew up like siblings with Pauline.

Lizard and my relationship remained (especially sexually) healthy. Gluttonous is probably a better word, but we were more discreet, and that counts for something.

As Ruby neared womanhood, I became more concerned for her lack of company. None of her family neared her age, nor any of The Extended Family, nor those who shared no blood with her. Something akin to sexual frustration was apparent in her. I did wonder how she would deal with this later in life, but I tried not to dwell on it.

Neptune's and Mercury's feelings towards me, however, remained unchanged. I feared their methods of unrelenting violence rubbed off on Jupiter, Pluto, and Lizard. More and more they returned to the village after meeting with Neptune bloodstained, almost stricken, as if they'd seen and participated in something they weren't so sure should have transpired. In heightening increase, I nursed small injuries of Lizards' that he'd acquired through some struggle. Before, it had been a simple shot in the head, rarely much more. No one suffered, if it could be helped. Now, the way they conducted themselves must have been to some degree devilish if the victims were so horrified they need kick and scratch and bite.

I know what you believe I imply, pertaining to Lizard. I do not mean to. What you're thinking of happened, yes, but I will elaborate on that some other time.

Preach was still an enigma. He was never unfriendly, almost the opposite. I saw the scathing looks he gave Neptune when he sneered at me, or Mercury when he growled or barked or whistled at me. I'd seen him speak, but never to me. His voice was raspy, but clearly spoken. In my presence, he seemed hardly there at all. I'd heard from Lizard he had a paralyzed son to whom sunlight was intolerable, the mother of which must have been long dead. He was theoretical, really. Nobody ever saw him. I wonder now whether he ever existed.

&&&&&&

Every chance they got, Neptune and Mercury proved to me the extent of their dislike. I did not see them so often that I was plagued by their hostility, and even so they were mostly harmless. I learned, over the months and years, that they'd no intention of carrying out the revenge I feared, but there was still the potential.

There is one instance that comes to my mind, the epitome of their animosity. During one of Hades' visits, Neptune, also, had occasion to be in the vicinity. I'd seen Pauline last with Ruby, and from Lizard and Jupiter, even Mercury, I'd heard, "Where Neptune go?"

Then, Ruby walked from behind the wooden skeleton of a house that had remained in-progress for over fifty years. She was not with Pauline. In my mind, I made the connection, but asked still, "Ruby, where's Pauline?"

"With Owl," she said. I found him, with the twins, and she was not there. Capricorn threw me a guilt-ridden glance before I turned and further pursued. Now I was certain of my convictions, but I kept myself calm. In and out of houses I searched, until finally I found them both, Pauline sitting on Neptune's lap, freckled streaks of skin visible through patches of dirt.

From the doorway, I looked on, until Neptune noticed me. "Mommy here," he told her, his voice gravelly, almost cobble stoned in the word's quick choppy secession of one another. He stared only at me, even as Pauline slipped down off his knee and toddled unsteadily forward. Her dress, which before had been neat and crinolined, was filthy.

I was tempted to ask, "What did he do to you?" but from beneath his scrutiny thought it more wise to say, "What happened, sweetie?"

"Capper-corn push," she said, her nearly two-year-old vernacular not so polished. "I got hurt." She pointed to her elbow, where the skin had been grazed, a scab beginning to form.

"Should I kiss it where it's sore?"

"Make it better," she nodded, her tone affirmative, as if I'd supplied her with the answer and she merely agreed to it. I kissed her elbow lightly, aware of Neptune's scorn, and saw through the open door Lizard not so far off.

"Go to daddy, okay?" She nodded, and Neptune was silent until I glimpsed Pauline tug at Lizard's pant leg, the obliging piggyback ride that followed.

"Always understood why Lizard did it," he said, nodding towards where Pauline had run to. "Protectin' what his. But you?"

"I never did anything to Saturn and Crypt, definitely not anything to provoke-"

"Why you ever here? Don't belong."

"This is _my _family."

"They kill the one you got before?" He sneered at me, on the verge of laughing. He continued: "Know what we do to girls like you before Jupe go soft?"

I didn't answer.

"Fuckin' kill them, that what."

I frowned at him, thinking his response had been pathetic in its inadequacy. If he'd meant to insult me, he'd failed, and if he'd meant to frighten or threaten me he must have known there was not much he could do once Pauline was out of any danger. I found myself questioning my fears, doubting my precautions. He was not daunting in stature, did not pose such a threat that I thought it unwise to be alone with him in the room.

"I find that hard to believe," I told him, my voice almost teetering from the impact I knew my comment would have. "Since your sons were so easily taken care of."

I don't know if he thought I believed my own words. It's true I was almost able to subdue Saturn and Crypt myself, and they'd stood no chance with Lizard, but they'd almost killed me. It didn't matter. The blow was crippling, I could see that in his face.

To further establish his defeat, I gave him a triumphant look, and left. In hindsight, it was not wise, not at all. I shouldn't have given him any more reason to hate me. Even so, from then on he did not pester me whenever he could. At least, not for a long while.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: **From now on, I'm going to update only every several reviews, because I have less and less time on my hands as the third marking period progresses (high school and such). Also, I'm a review whore, and my ego needs constant feedback to keep the rest of me motivated. Oh, and the deformity I mention of Jupiter's is, in fact, from the movie. Go special features on disc two! Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy.

The tranquil road, struck by the lambent sea-glass greens, rustic browns, and off-white reflections of the single flickering lamppost on the bottle tree, was our destination. Never had I been there at night, and to think I had missed this sight for what was then four years was an odd thing. I forgot that the desert was never constant, that it could force awe from you when you were at your most unsuspecting.

Lizard woke me late in the night, fully dressed, gentle urgency in his eagerness. "What?' I said. "Has something happened?" As always, I was drawn to Pauline's safety, especially as she had begun to sleep in Ruby's room, where there was an extra bed rather than a crib. I was too sleepy, though, for any real fright to register in my voice.

"No," he said. "Wanna show you somethin'. Quick, get dressed."

"Now?"

"Uh huh." Slowly, I gathered myself up, legs aching with the sudden change in effort. He turned his back to me as I quickly slipped on the dress from the day before; an off-the-shoulder thing I could not resist taking from a suitcase, pretty and frail in its pale browns and scant watery pinks.

"Shoes?" he said.

"Um – I don't know. I put them… somewhere."

"Don' matter," he said, and we departed; I wondering and he refusing to tell.

The desert was an entirely separate place in the darkness; grey and luminous, gaunt about the peaks, shadowy and black beneath cliffs and at the base of rocky trellis-like structures. I shivered, the chill air raising goose bumps, it's tonic pepperiness belittling. Lizard wrapped an arm around me, shepherd like, in a manner I would have found contrary to his nature when first I laid eyes on him.

Without shoes, my feet battled bitterly with rock, and with each defeat I hissed, the sharp intake of breath letting Lizard know that I was not amused. When, finally, I bruised more than just my feet when I fell backwards, alarmed at the sudden beating of a vulture's wings, I gave Lizard an exasperated look, and said, "How much longer do I have to walk?"

"Not far," he said, and helped me up. The vulture stared at me from a nearby skeleton tree, and its red fleshy face seemed to tell me he was telling the truth, and that I would not regret it if I walked just a little farther.

I didn't. He had no need to point out what he'd wanted me to see, because when I saw it I knew that's what he must have brought me out for. I was a little surprised; it was a distinctly feminine part of me that recognized it's loveliness, and I could not imagine him swooning at the sight (meaning, I thought, that he was being strangely more considerate than was normal). I stared into the stark white of the bulb, platinum in its consistency, the lamppost looming overhead.

"Oh!" I said. "Its beautiful! Much better at night!" I nearly yelled it, and he had to shush me, pointing to Fred's bedroom window before he said, "Gas station man hates me."

"Really? Fred?" I laughed and reached my hand out to the light, the red that was propelled on to Lizard's face. My fingers interrupted the glare, their ghosts wrought into his countenance.

"You're blushing!" I told him, and giggled childishly.

"You sick," he replied, casting his own fingers into the light that struck my face, so that I saw that it was green.

"No, not sick. I'm jealous. I'm _absolutely _green with envy."

He asked me about color, and of what it consisted; I told him that color – red, green, gold – resides in the eye of the beholder; that it does not inhere in the object itself, any more than pain dwells in the needle. So we spoke, as we sat beneath the weepy would-be arboreal, far behind the beams of Fred's Oasis.

There was a lapse in conversation, before I said, "We need music."

Lizard perked up at this, and sprang to his feet.

"What?" I said. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Shhhh," he whispered, a finger to his crooked lips, and crept into the Oasis. Alone, the darkness seeped into my mind, crawling, like some serpentine of ice, up my backbone. Again, I felt the chill of the frigid night. Minutes later, he emerged from the store, a decrepit black radio in tow.

"That's Fred's?" I said, brightening up. Lizard nodded, and, laying it on the ground, switched it on. The volume was low, but still the sound contrasted eerily with the former silence. Some undulating, crooning country singer, an older croaky man accompanied by an acoustic guitar, sang through the white noise.

"My God, it's awful," I laughed, and Lizard agreed. Still, he held his hand out ceremoniously for mine, and twirled me languidly, in time to the lengthy beat. I rocked my hips to it, though it was surprisingly difficult to match the leisurely twinkle of the instruments.

I found it, perhaps, funnier than I should have. The mockery of dance, mockery of music, enhanced by Lizard's purposely satirical humming along to the warbling mess of a song. Both his hands on my waist, we stood close, and I could not help but feel hot and needy and sick. Funny, how some near forty-something man I once thought of as monstrous could have me so completely pining when others, more my age, had me bored. I wished Pauline's conception could have been nearly this tantalizing. I recall, after the act that got me pregnant, Marcus rolled over, chortling and gasping, and I thought to myself, _There are other ways I would have preferred to spend my Saturday night. _

His chin grazing my cheekbones forced me to reality, his hand heavy at the pit of my stomach. I sighed heavily as he smoothed the mounts of his palms down my shoulder.

Then, the overturning of a bucket startled us, as if from hypnosis.

It almost did not make sense to me – _was that Preach?_ Why he was there I don't know. He stared, as if caught in the headlights, spilt water at his feet. From the bottle tree, hazy purplish light shone on his face.

"Fuck you doin' here?" Lizard snarled, taking a step forward. Preach did not answer, only gaped, and backed into the blacks and grays of the scarcely fathomable.

The song had ended, and Lizard took a step from me, the moment destroyed. Yet, I came away with my head full of him, fizziness not settled by what Preach had so abruptly ended.

&&&&&&

_I have been forever plagued, as I am of such a memory that to distinguish dreams from past life is a blundering task. Oh, to properly know my mind would be a knowledge worth all knowledge. To no longer be a marionette made silly on the stage._

I walked with a walk that was measured and slow, bewildered to why, again, he was there. Days had passed, and this time my visit to the gas station was without company, without moonlight. On my entry to the Oasis, Fred had handed me a large cardboard box and said, "For Ruby."

Inside were books, many books, and a diaphanous green and white dress. "She reads?" I asked.

"Mmhmm," he said. "Thought you'd know better'n me."

"There aren't really any books in the town."

"I 'spose that's why she wanted these," he replied, chuckling.

I thought it odd, briefly, that he'd bother to put together such a present. How much time did she spend around him? Was it not strange to give a nearly teenage girl a dress, and with no blood shared between them? I pondered his intentions, then dismissed my thoughts as absurd. He was a lonely old man, yes, but he simply wished to indulge her, not himself. I'd no idea that he thought on her fondly, almost grandfatherly. He told me often, "The children grew up, like wild animals, in the mine. Don't know why you didn't get going years ago."

With this, as well as tinned vegetables and fruit, and iced tea (such a find!), my progress was drawn out, ridiculously tedious. The caustic specter-sun had me browbeaten; a wife beater of Jupiter's stuck to the road bumps of my spine, an archaic pleated skirt to the backs of my legs. The distance, even, appeared to sweat and stick and drip, skipping over itself in kaleidoscope fashion, running into its own décor. A roadrunner glared at me, acrimonious, a scorpion twitching from its beak. Where the prairie chickens, which occasionally supplemented Ruby and my diet, had got to I was unsure. Since the heat wave had struck, consistency infallible, they must have retreated to some shady place.

I was fully prepared to set my load down and whip off my shirt, anything for some relief from such brutal airlessness. I saw him, quaky and hazy and uncertainly distant in that faraway place. I assumed it was Lizard, and could nearly have shouted, to the sun, "Ha! Fuck you!"

But it wasn't. It was Preach. He pointed to the box of books, demeanor almost sorrowful, and I nodded vaguely. He lifted it, balancing precariously as always – not at one with his own feet. Unfamiliar as I was in his company, I told him, "Thanks."

From then on, this occurred often. If he was supposed to be there, he took the boxes into the town limits, as was the case that first time. If not, he turned and went back the direction he originally came.

As it happened, he assisted me all the way to the front steps of the house, and said, "Jupiter wanna see ya'."

"Oh, okay," I said. "Uh, where – where is he?"

He pointed to the neighboring house, and, looking over my shoulder briefly, I headed over.

I passed through the open front door, breaking apart a stream of crinkling scintilla. The dust scattered, and regrouped. Big Mama and Ruby sat side by side in the living room, a TV show blaring, animating their flickerless faces.

"Ruby," I called, and she turned to me.

"Fred gave me a box for you. Full of books. It's on my porch."

"And dress?" she asked, bliss and liveliness written into her features where before there was nothing.

"Yep. That as well." She got to her feet, and ran quickly past. I waited for the screen door to slam behind her before I spoke again. "Big Mama, where's Jupiter?"

Without looking away from the television screen, she pointed to his and her bedroom. I nodded and went on.

As I entered, I glimpsed, ephemerally, Jupiter pulling a shirt over his head, the parasite twin beneath. After Aries' and Capricorn's birth, I recalled he had almost gasped with relief that they'd not been infused together. As an infant, he'd not been so lucky. The dead twin had become part of him, protruding from his chest. I wondered what would have become of the twin if it had lived?

"Jupiter?"

"Mmm."

"You needed to see me."

"Mmm."

"For what, pray tell?"

"Got a trailer in the desert."

"Oh. I didn't see it."

He shrugged, and continued. "Two men, woman, and boy."

"But – you told Fred not to send them if there were ever children."

"Teenager. Probly' fifteen."

"Same thing. He's young."

"No choice. Got to feed us, and Neptune take half." I flinched. Whenever it was referred to as 'feeding', my subconscious recoiled.

"So, why do you need me?"

"Men got guns. Saw them shooting. Can aim."

"Oh, Jesus, then you can't-"

"Got to."

"But-"

"'S why we need you."

"What could I possibly do about it?"

"Distraction."

"Oh!"

He explained to me his plan, and as it was not so perilous, I agreed. Though not inapprehensively.

"Does Lizard know?"

"Yes," Jupiter laughed. "Not happy."

Back on the steps to my front door, Ruby sat, already chin-deep in a book. The cover said _Brave New World_, by Aldous Huxley.

"I read that in my first year of high school," I told her. "Do you get it? I didn't, at first."

"Yep," she said. "It good."

"It is. I remember, there was this one line I could never forget. It went – oh, maybe I have forgotten. No, wait, I remember! It was – it was, 'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.' The absolute _best _line." I could tell she liked the way it sounded, by the way she stared up, pondering, as if she'd heard some soul-inspiring scripture that had her reconsidering religion.

"Pretty, huh?"

She nodded, and then said, "There a boy out there. Papa Jupiter and Lizard won't kill him, so maybe he live with us. Like you. Forever." She smiled, this thought pleasing her more than any line in any book could. I dared not tell her differently, dared not needlessly trod upon such ephemeral hope.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note:** Sorry for being slow about updating. I've been working on a Clockwork Orange fic (which I'll post soon as I come up with a title, and decide whether to keep it a one-shot or follow it up) and I'm in the process of rewriting the last few chapters of Cradle to the Grave (none of the chapters currently posted will be replaced, though). And on top of that, there's school and splitting computer time with my sister, who cannot POSSIBLY use any other of the five computers in my damn house! Without further ado, here is an update.

"Pauline?"

"Uh huh."

"You'll be a good girl, right? No more fighting with Capricorn."

"But Capper-corns got cooties."

"Sweetie, don't worry about that. You can watch TV if you want, with Ruby. But go to bed when she wants you to."

"Okay," she sighed, her exasperation a façade unearthed by giggling and lip biting.

"I love you."

"Love you, mommy."

"Do I get a goodnight kiss?" She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, and kissed me gingerly on the cheek.

"Night, sweetie."

"Goodnight," she answered, and ran off in the direction of Aries and a shredded collection of doll parts. Ruby followed, and waved goodbye to me.

Outside, the night was tepid, lukewarm, thick and stupid. I wore jeans, to give the appearance of your average, everyday twenty-something-in-a-desert. They were impractical, and stiff with lack of use, but I did look much like I used to before I was pregnant and able to wear low-rise things.

Lizard waited for me, he in the driver's seat of some beat up range rover, I climbing into the passenger's seat. He squeezed my hand in reassurance, and then stepped hard on the accelerator, taking off haphazardly.

Before we were in view of the trailer, we stopped, parking the car under the rocky hollows of an overhanging peak. We stepped out into the darkness, and each gave the trashed fender a swift kick, furthering the damage by small increments. Skirting the edges and shadows of the cliffs and hills, we walked on to where we'd agreed to meet Pluto, Goggle, and Mercury. From behind tumbleweed and sagebrush, they stared out at the trailer. My heart pounded in my gut, my conscious outside my head.

"When?" I asked.

"Soon as Jupe radios," Mercury answered, grinning mockingly, questioning my ability to carry out what I had promised. And time passed, until I was alarmingly unnerved, and still ticked on.

The radio came alive, abruptly, and Jupiter's voice said faintly, "Now, now. Go."

I stood up, squeezed Lizard's shoulder, and traveled the expanse of desert between us and them, anxious and fearful and doubtful all at once.

Within disquieting proximity of the trailer, I paused one last time. I breathed in, out. In, and out. Again, and again. Before I could stall longer, I shouted, in as haggard a voice as I could manage, "Help me!"

_Surely_, I told myself, _if there is indeed a hell, I will burn for what I'm about to do. _A wild thought. I saw the headlights. I heard the engine.

"Please! Help!" I repeated.

Crashing through the side door the first one came, gun in hand. "What?" he yelled. "What's wrong? Who is it?"

Another followed, also firearm-clad, then a wife and son standing in the doorway.

"Oh! Thank God!" I told them, my words convincing even myself. "I'm – I'm stuck out there. My car – it's wrecked, won't drive. I was – oh, thank God!"

They were too nice. They took me in. "Coffee?" the woman offered.

"No, thanks."

I explained my situation. I'd been driving in the desert ("Why?"), because the man at the gas station told me this was the most time efficient road to travel ("Really? Us, too."). At one point or another, my tires popped ("Ha ha, I guess that happens all the time out here!"). I had a spare, could they help me fix it? I'd not the faintest idea how, myself.

"This can't wait 'til morning?"

"Well, not really. Sorry, could you still help?"

The men agreed. Of course they would. I'd be doing them a huge favor if I could get back to a gas station and call them a tow truck. Of course I could. I thanked them over and over. If it hadn't been for them, who knows what I'd have done?

"Do you mind if I stay here? I'm a bit shook up. I nearly crashed after the tires went, and my cars just behind that hill." I spoke with suck painstaking formality it was difficult to think of anything beyond the next word.

"Oh, sure," the first man responded. I threw him my keys, and he and the other, with a flashlight, took off. I was only a young girl; why not trust me with their family?

Until they were out of sight, I made small talk, though every word from me contributed to one lie or another. I'm from New Mexico, yes. Oh, no, I'm twenty-two, I was just heading back home from college. Yes, this humidity is uncharacteristically heady. Aren't deserts supposed to be dry and hot? It must be about to rain.

By then, the two men must already have been dead. I could see the woman getting agitated.

"What's your name?" I asked the boy.

"Dylan."

"And you are...?"

"Marsha. You?"

I fumbled. "Eh – Elise."

"I had an aunt named Elise," Marsha said, distractedly. "I wonder what's taking them so long?"

"I'll go check."

I insisted I didn't need a flashlight, and left the side door open. I walked until they couldn't possible see me anymore, then doubled back. All four were gone from behind the tumbleweed, and I could see movement through the distant windows of the trailer.

I was curious. Closer, closer, the windows seemingly larger now. Were they dead? Could I go back home yet? I approached.

Brilliantly, astonishingly, a frigid crack! sounded. My throat tightened. Again, closer, 'til I was not far at all from the trailer. Screaming within, the wrong kind of screaming.

"Oh no, please! Oh, God, God! Let him go!"

Another bang, and another. The first; a gunshot. The second, the door colliding with the side of the trailer, Dylan spilling out, scrambling away.

"Run!" he shouted to me, pulling my arm. "You gotta – oh, fuck. Run!" He sobbed and convulsed, dragging me.

"They killed mom!" he repeated, over and over. "They – they – oh, shit. Shit!"

Lizard, now, ran out of the door, yelling, "Where he go? Where?" The boy sprang back, gave up on me, and ran.

"What was that – that weird screaming?" I asked, brisk, before Lizard could chase the poor kid.

"Woman," Lizard said, and spat. "Was Mercury. Not me. Was Mercury."

"What? What did Mercury do?"

Too late. He'd run off. I followed, not sure why, but I followed, my question in need of an answer.

Cornered. Poor thing. Absolutely trapped.

Against the rock, he pleaded. "Please, don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

"Lizard!" I screamed.

He aimed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw an airy green and white dress.

"Ruby?"

In her face was the most inhuman determination.

"No!" she shrieked. "Don't!"

She ran, jumped, collided, was very nearly shot. Lizard was thrown back, gun out of his hands, explosion into the rock face. Lizard swore, and Ruby punched and kicked.

Without thinking, I took up the gun. The boy had not missed the opportunity, his back now to me, bolting. I knew, then, what was necessary. I did not want to, but I would because I loved them best. I loved them best, and that boy could not be allowed to get away. He's seen so much. He'd have to die.

I gave chase. He did not even realize I was a danger to him. He turned, saw that I had the gun, and was gladdened. _Good thing she's on my side,_ he must have thought. Such a miscalculation, such a flaw in assessment. I fired, and he was struck square in the chest. Backwards, backwards, then hard scaly ground.

Behind me, Ruby shrieked, "No! No!"

He huffed away on the rock, squirming and crying. The blood had been shot Pollock-like beneath him, the rest running, running. It formed, in tide-rock pools, in dents in rock and ground. He stared up, uncomprehending, and then through the pain understanding that I'd never, never been on his side.

"I'm so sorry," I told him, my voice drowned by my regret. Not for my actions, but for the necessity of them. His face, twisting horribly, inscrutably, was alight with the gut-wrenching torture of sharp air through injury.

I aimed, now, at his head, and pulled the trigger. The chamber clicked, the barrel empty. I tried again, only to be met by the same lackluster tick.

"Shit!" I screamed, and threw the gun to the ground. Ruby fell upon the boy, taking his hand, the blood on her dress. She glanced at him mournfully, petting his head. She said, over and over, "Now he'll never want to live with us."

As if there was any hope for him now.

Lizard, rubbing the back of his head, approached. "Where's Pluto?" I asked. "And Goggle?"

"Wit' Jupiter. Ambushed men."

"And…" I trailed off, dreading the answer. "What was that awful, awful screaming?" Mercury, still, had not left the trailer.

Quietly, Lizard answered my question, to keep Ruby from overhearing. She was beyond caring, but I was not. I stood stock-still, and could nearly have thrown up.

"How long have they been doing that?"

"All this time," he said. "Neptune, Mercury, Preach."

"Preach?"

"Preach, too. Preach no good."

"But you-"

"No. Not me."

Ruby pressed her hand to the bullet hole, attempted to clear away the blood; a pitiful sight. Dylan coughed, and it became obvious he was drowning in his own blood, deep within the lungs. Methodically, Lizard took the butt of the shotgun, paced over to the boy.

"Don't hurt him!" Ruby moaned.

"Already hurt," Lizard replied, and, with a resounding thunk, slammed the shotgun down to crush his skull. A sickening crunch ensued, killing him instantly.

I'd never seen Ruby so hateful, all her rage vented at Lizard. Not at me, who had kept him from escaping. But he, who had only ended his suffering. I waited as the nausea defeated itself, the roiling stomach calmed, and then turned back, walking the distance to the village.

&&&&&&

"So, what, do you just let it happen?" I yelled at him, pacing around the dimly lit bedroom, stomping angrily.

"Not at first," Lizard said, his tone almost pleading. He sat on the bed, his expression begging me to keep quiet, to understand. I couldn't. The moment he'd returned, I'd directed my escalating rage at him.

"What?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"First, no. Then, had to let them."

"No! No, you didn't!"

"Yes. For you."

"For me?"

"Had to stay on they good side. To protect you."

"But they never did anything to me. They never have."

"Didn' know that then."

"You could stop them now."

"No," he said, almost to himself, so that I wasn't sure if he'd meant me to hear. I didn't admit it, but I knew why there was nothing he could do. Almost four years prior, when the deal was agreed upon, it had been a favor on Neptune's part. He didn't have to offer. He could have exacted his revenge. Lizard was, still, in no position to keep them from doing anything.

"Do you see it happen?" I asked, needing to know, I suppose, the extent of his innocence.

"What?"

"I said, have you ever seen it happen?"

"No. Avoid it, much as I can."

I was silent, then whispered, "Tonight was a disaster."

He nodded in agreement.

"Where's Ruby?"

"Her room."

"Has she changed out of that dress?"

"Dunno."

I sighed. "Poor kid," I said, and wasn't sure if I meant Ruby or Dylan. I'd done a good job keeping myself from dissolving into tears, but I didn't know how long that would last. I thought, and, disgusted with myself, laughed.

"What?"

"I'm just glad were us, and not them."

Lizard chuckled. Both of us, I think, were content enough to simply forget. Of course, I couldn't. I still look back on it, after these years that divide the present from that moment. I can recall, with infallible clarity, the boy's head thrown back, the blood welling from his nose. And, after that horrifying crunch, the absence of bone structure, of a face, of thought or consciousness. Lizard, of course, thinks of it as hardly different from the other deaths. He thinks of it more as my kill than his. I can hardly fathom the ability to live and let live, to not care about such things. I envy it.

One always finds it easy to forgive that which she cares for. But I've forgotten, haven't I? It _was_ more difficult that time. Though not by too much.

I conditioned myself then. I made myself have to be more like Lizard, more like Pluto. So, I'd shot a boy. Oh well. He would've died, whether or not it had been me or Lizard or Mercury who'd completed the task. I had to think only of family, of survival, of the necessity of things. Fuck conventionality; fuck right and wrong and all those things that hadn't mattered for ages. Not since my last life, not since normality. And, fuck normality! I lived like they lived. If that meant having blood on your conscious, killing those who may or may not deserve death, so be it. There were no consequences, no shame or guilt. Only one person was disgusted by my actions, and that was myself.

No. I was wrong. Ruby, too.

"She left Pauline," Lizard said, shaking his head.

"It's okay. She was with Big Mama and the twins."

"Said she'd take care of Pauline. Lied. Never done that before. Stupid girl almost got shot. Don't know what got into her."

"So what're you going to do? Punish her? Banish her to her room? She'd prefer that to being with us. She hates you, and me."

"Never been like this. She never act this way."

"She told me that she thought he might stay. The boy. She didn't think you – we'd kill him." I shuddered. Was I really speaking of this as if I'd done it on a regular basis. By all means, I should be going completely out of my head. The look on his face, stricken eyes, bloody teeth, came to mind; I flinched. I clapped my hands together, as if this would make the image pop! and disappear.

"You okay?" he asked.

Slowly, I let my breath out through my teeth. "No, not really." I could have laughed, to let him know that, with time, Ruby and I would be all right. I could have. I didn't.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note:**I haven't got much to say, except that I've always found this chapter to be a bit weak. But no worries, next chapter is one of my favorites. As always, I'd appreciate a review (rather, I'd LOVE a review). Thanks.

**-----**

Only Ruby refused to forgive the events of that night. She would not speak to me, would not eat. The dress Fred had given her had been torn into pieces, clawed apart. I found it by her doorway. It lay in a heap, shredded and musty as the wings of a moth. She wreaked havoc silently. The next day, I found _Brave New World_, only the cover, all but one page ripped out. That line pounced out at me: _And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death._ I wondered if she had finished reading it, or if she'd neglected to in spite of me. Swiftly, I threw out the evidence of both minor crimes, knowing she was targeting me alone as her scapegoat.

She emerged from her room, finally, while I struggled to keep Pauline entertained. It became more and more difficult after Ruby ceased helping. I suddenly realized how insistent she could be, as did Lizard. He'd been promoted from his third in command to right hand man, and I made sure he fully exercised that responsibility. As Ruby sat herself on the steps of the porch, we chased Pauline and Aries through the town, declaring our hunger for child flesh. Lizard, as always, was far superior than I when it came to convincing them we wished to devour their toes and feet and the rest of their tiny bodies. He whisked them up off the ground, twirled them about, saying, "Num num! Baby fingers!"

"I'm _not_ a baby," Pauline pouted, hands on her hips.

"'Course not. Eat you, anyway."

Already, he'd succeeded in making Capricorn burst into tears. He sat on his legs by a pile of two-by-fours, sniffling loudly, while I attempted to console him. I rubbed his back, saying, "Don't be silly. It's just a game. He isn't really going to eat you."

From my perch, I watched Pauline run to Ruby, tripping into her lap. Ruby stroked her hair, and whispered something into her ear, to which Pauline replied in a voice unheard by me. This exchange continued, Ruby's grip on Pauline's shoulder steadily tightening, until Pauline abruptly broke free and trod sullenly back towards Lizard.

I had planned not to ask what Ruby said, out of some regard for the privacy she sought, a sort of peace offering she'd never learn of. Pauline told me of her own accord.

The both of us, dressed in newly acquired nightclothes, sat on Lizard and my bed. The past few nights she had slept between us, not excluded by Ruby's refusal to see anyone. She hummed "the Walrus and the Carpenter", the tune which had been used alternately as a lullaby for her and a ploy by Lizard to get me to sleep with him whenever I insisted I could not possibly, that I was simply too exhausted. I admit, it was extraordinarily effective. I was amused by the songs vices and virtues; it's innocent yet lustfully corrupt quality.

"Mommy," Pauline said, wrapping a strand of my hair around her fingers. "Ruby said Lizard's not my daddy." In my chest, a pendulum struck a chord of wrath deep beneath the nerves.

"Did she?" I replied, my answer not betraying the truth of the statement.

"Yup. She said Mar-kuss is. Who's Mar-kuss?" I could hardly move, was incapable of speech. This was so beyond what I expected from Ruby, beyond, even, what I believed she could possibly muster the courage to say, knowing it would get back to me.

"Marcus is someone I don't know anymore," I told her. "And Lizard is your daddy, in the way that it matters most. Okay?"

"Okay," she replied, satisfied with the answer. It was not a falsity, exactly, but I knew I had tricked her into acceptance. I made it so she'd never remember this conversation, and never pursue a real answer. "Night, mommy."

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

Once she had fallen asleep, I slipped my arm out from under her, careful not to disturb such a delicate slumber. It was not late, bordering on ridiculously early for me to even consider sleep. I crept to Ruby's room, tapped cautiously on the door. There came no answer. I ignored my pretense, and shoved the door open with my shoulder, knowing I had not come here to be polite anyway.

Ruby lay on the bed, exhibiting no though or emotion. She stared, the nothingness almost remorseful, yet vicious all the same.

"Pauline told me what you said," I told her, letting my annoyance be known.

"It the truth."

"A truth she needn't have learned. She'll never meet her dad. Lizard is the only one she'll ever have, and she's lucky for that. Marcus is no father."

Ruby didn't answer. I went on.

"It's absurd for you to be angry with me. That boy would never have stayed here – his family was dead. If he'd been alive, and he'd gotten away, that would have been the end of us."

"You stayed."

"No one killed my mother or father."

"Your friends!"

"I didn't _watch_ them die."

Ignoring the inevitable truth, she hissed, "_Murderer."_

I cannot pretend this didn't sting.

"Yes. I am, if I have to be. You've been here longer than I; you know nothing is more important than family. The boy wasn't like me. He wouldn't have stayed, not even for you."

Which, of course, is what she had wanted all along. In that respect, though she was just as angry with him as she was with me, she was no different than Lizard.

"You _killed_ him."

"Do you think, because I look different, because I'm not from here, that I'm not the same? You're more a goddamn outsider than I've ever been."

"Fuck you," she spat. "You not even _Family_!" I'd never heard her speak so crassly. I was shocked, and hurt, and it showed in my face. Before I could restrain myself, I'd grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her. Hard.

"You don't get it! I didn't want to do it! And I'm not going to forget him, not anytime soon. I was – I was between a rock and a hard place. I didn't have a fucking choice, nor have I forgiven myself. Do you understand me? I did it for you, and for everyone else! The Family is more important than your goddamn love life! I _know_ you know it!"

She repeated, "You not even Family."

"You say that, for some kid you've never spoken to?" I let go, and turned on my heel. "You don't even know his _fucking_ name."

Only my footsteps spoke, echoing on the hardwood floor.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note:** Okay, I happen to _love_ this chapter. But I'd like to know what you think (hint, hint). Read and review, if you will, even if you already have before. I'm a tad bit needy about this sort of thing.

I should not have been surprised. Every time, every encounter, had occurred in that halfway place, somewhere between Fred's Oasis and the test village. The knowledge of his… filth, those things he did to women, disgusted me. I almost didn't realize he'd no idea that I knew all about that. He showed up, of course, not knowing that this time it was different. This time I hated him. When he approached, I stepped to the side.

"I help you?" Preach asked, confused.

"No, I've got it," I replied, my tone clipped. I sped up. It dawned on me that he may try on me what he'd forced on the other women. He trailed behind; my refrain from politeness had not thrown him off. Fortunately, he had been somewhat later than normal in meeting me, and the village was not so far off. I could see the no longer cerulean sky stretch over the cliff that hung welcomingly beyond the town; amber and disco blue, shooting through each other like the inside of a champagne glass.

He hurried to walk beside me. Again, I sped up, not so much that he would notice. I thought, _if I can just make it to the town, I'll be fine._

Before long, we were there, past the sign that declared the town, past the vulture that perched there. Had I known what would precede this, I might have thought the inky black plumage to be an omen. I left the crate and bucket on Big Mama's porch, and turned to Preach. I breathed in heavily, then said, "You don't need to come out to help me anymore. I can handle it."

He shrugged. "Don't mind."

"I do. Just – I'll get Lizard to help. I don't want to see you out there anymore, or anytime I don't have to."

He blinked. "What?"

I grimaced. I knew I was being cruel, but it was nothing compared to his crimes. Anything, anything, to keep him away from me. "Lizard told me what you've been doing. You – I don't want you around me anymore." I spoke venomously; I had to. He _was not_ getting it.

"Doing? What I doing?"

"To women!"

He sneered, and I could see Neptune's scorn stand out in his face. "Don' matter. They all dead."

I shoved him away. "Keep away from me! Get the fuck out of here!"

He snarled, grabbing my wrists. "Haven't seen what Lizard and Pluto do? Jupiter and Goggle? I show you."

I tried to pull away, his grip reinforcing itself. "They aren't like you! They haven't done anything!"

"You see. I show you."

Harshly, he pulled me to him, his hand over my mouth, not releasing as I bit down. He lifted me, and out the door he went as I kicked at his knees; they buckled, and still he held fast. I saw where he was headed, where he was taking me. At the edge of the village, the house I never entered. Out of sight, out of mind. The air conditioners in each window pointed inward, so that there would be no smell on the hottest days. It was the freezer room, where they kept the bodies.

I screamed through his fingers, seeing what he meant to do. He flung me against the door, holding me steady as my head _smashed_, already a bruise forming, sending a pang of nausea throughout. He forced the door open, and threw me inside, hard, against the wall. In my face, a body! Stuck on a hook, grazing my cheek! The veins and sinews and arteries and nerves, clinging to bone! All around the room it was! Stuck on hooks, on tables and counters. I glimpsed the butcher's knife, brown with blood. The red, red glistened on my face, dripped on to the floor. My clothes, stained, the efflorescence of the stucco ceiling drifting downward where I'd collided with the wall. I bent over, absolutely hot-sick, and vomited. He _laughed_. Again, he shoved me, now onto the floor. Blood and blood and blood, on my fingers, my bare knees. Limbs and bones and parts, the mannequins decorated in it, grizzly and sick with it. My skin, and underneath my skin, were petrified. I felt the weight of it, the pressure, shutting me inside myself, dizzying the room.

I scrambled to my feet, nearly fell once more even without his assistance. He stood by the door, leering, blocking the exit. My chest heaving, stomach roiling, I ran to the window. If I could push the air conditioner out, I could crawl through, I could escape! In two long strides, he'd reached me, grabbing the end of my dress, flinging me back. He pressed me against the ramshackle wall; I shared space with the risqué mannequins. He squeezed my face together with his hands, thumb and forefinger forced painfully below my cheekbones, lips pursed. He ran the Mount of Venus of his palm down my thighs, beginning at my navel, the rest of his hand, like his breath, spasmodically drawn. His fingernails grated against the fabric of my dress, the skin of my legs.

Unseen to him was my own hand, flitting and tremulous, sneaking towards the butcher's knife. I grabbed the handle, and it was then he saw, as the wood of the grip scraped against the wood of the counter, and I swung. It came down screeching to his shoulder blade, biting down on bone, lacerating grotesquely. His mouth stretched obscenely, his cry blood curling. I pushed him off of me, and he fell against the mannequins of the opposite wall, the knife further protruding.

"You beast!" I screamed at him. "You fucking monster!" He could hardly object, trying to grab the knife lodged in his shoulder, not quite grasping it. I ran out the door, stumbling over the steps, wiping away at myself in frenzied attempts to clear the blood.

"Netta? Netta!" Ruby screamed, eyes widened at the sight of me. Pauline stood behind her, Ruby's hands obstructing her view.

"Get her inside! Inside!" I yelled, as Preach tripped through the door, reaching still for the elusive knife. Pauline tried to remove Ruby's hands from her face, crying, "Mommy? What's wrong with mommy?", but could not. Ruby turned and ran, obeying me, finally forgetting about the boy. She disappeared with Pauline as Preach limped forward, falling to the ground.

I stepped forward, pulled the butcher's knife from his shoulder as he groped at my knees. I held it over my head, and still he came closer. I found I was at my wit's end – I brought the knife down, screamed as it descended, and near cleaved his skull in two.

Stillness. Before the end, his eyes filling with blood, capillaries bursting. He gaped at me, as if he were incapable of understanding what I had done. His teeth now jagged and red, head split and leaking down his face. _No!_ I wanted to scream at him. _It's you whose actions have no sense in them! Why cause me that sort of harm? Your fingernails on my leg, clawing upwards! Just like those women! You who wished me no ill! You who despised me least! I am not helpless! Not helpless. You will rot, like your cousins have, and for the same mistake._

He swayed before he toppled, and it is no surprise that there was blood dripping from my chin, streaking my nose and jaw, bitter at the back of my throat. Metallic and cold. My hair stringy with it, clothes soaked. The body parts catapulted themselves into my mind, the arms and legs and torsos. The remnants of that man, stuck on the hook, soft and wet against my face. My mind, slipping on ice and wet cobblestone. Time slowed down, though I was not sure when exactly it had sped up.

Presence of mind returned, the out of body roughness shattered. An analytical coldness swept me, letting me know that I was fucked. No deal could be sought now, no forgiveness begged. Now, they really would want me dead. Crisply, clinically, I weighed my options.

I could not stand there, out in the open, covered in blood, all but my own. _Okay, okay, _I'd move Preach the corpse at my feet. Slowly, I took his arms, dragged him back towards the freezer room. It was difficult, over the steps especially, and that _rotting_ smell encompassed by the heat was stifling, deadening. The dead in the doorway, I shoved his legs inside, slammed the door, and breathed. _Oh, how cold and cruel you are,_ I thought. _Truly murderous; such a beast I am, and so close to the heart. _I had gotten full of breath, and warm and wobbly inside, yet I laughed.

_Not only I. This village is a beast, and it is inhabited by beasts._

Another part of me gave the first a sardonic look, and said, _That's what I've been trying to tell you. All this time._

I gasped, knowing my sanity had left me again. There was no time, not time at all for this speechless chatter. Once more, reason took control. The bucket of water I'd pumped at Fred's Oasis lay by the porch. I dumped it over my head, the pink-tinged water slapping my feet. Not enough, not at all. A scarcely used outdoor shower was near. I ran to it, not bothering to slam the shutter-resembling doors behind me. The water trickled, but it was enough to clear the remaining blood, the phantom gore.

_What to do next?_ Systematically, I made my way indoors, calling, "Ruby? Ruby, where are you?"

I found her, looking shaky and pale and weak. Pauline clung to her leg, frightened of what Ruby had not let her see. Her eyes were squeezed shut. "Okay, good," I said, my nearly nonchalant manner enhancing their fear. My tone took on a more panicky mood, reflecting the honesty of the situation. "Just – stay right here. I'll be right back."

I ran again, to my bedroom. I peeled the dress away from my skin, the blood and sweat and water leaving a flighty semblance of the floral print behind. I wiped it from my chest and stomach, and threw the dress into a plastic bag. It crumpled in on itself, forgetting it's own shape and remembering the contours of the plastic. I slipped into yoga pants and a wife beater, effacing the scene of violence. I appeared normal, if not at least quaking and frenzied alone. No Miss Murder here, no chop-happy lunatic. Back, now, to Ruby and Pauline.

If she was happy to see me unharmed, I could not tell. "Little Mama okay?" she whimpered, revealing nothing, stock-still.

"Yes. I'm all right, but maybe not for long. Tell me, where's the rest of The Family?"

"Mine."

"Why?"

"Prairie chickens."

I could almost have chuckled.

"Are they with Neptune and Mercury?"

"Yes, yes."

"Shit!" I slammed my fist against the doorframe. "Okay, listen. Don't say anything, act normal. When they come back, we'll wait until Neptune and Mercury leave, then I'll explain everything. Okay?"

She nodded.

I took Pauline from her. She was crying, eyes still shut.

"It's okay, honey. Mommy's here. Shush, shush, everything is fine."

"You screamed," she moaned.

"Only because…only because I was worried. Nothing's wrong. Don't cry, honey."

I thought back on a song my mother used to sing to herself. The title left me, but the chorus did not. _Baby is where bad things never happen._

"I love you, more than anything else in the world, okay? I love you."

I shushed her, held her, grasped Ruby's hand, and felt an enormous relief engulf the lingering distress. There was no reason for it. I was, still, absolutely fucked.

&&&&&&

He stood up slowly, unfolding like some kind of long-legged bird. _Spoonbill, _my mind recited. _Crane. Ibis. Blue heron. Egrets and whooping things, hardly keeping themselves from extinction. Storks and kingfishers. Flight and feathers and hollow bones, backward bending joints. The condition of aerodynamacy._

The rest stood behind him, as if in a funeral progression. The phrase was appropriate; from my seat on the porch, I could watch them all as they gazed at the corpse. Preach had been in that body once. Not so still as he was now, though he'd always been behind the radar and, I realized, sneaky.

_Shallow lakes. Marshes. Lagoons. Estuaries and tidal flats. Pale, mottled grey coats, pink bills, reddish eyes. Speckled and wax billed and black-shouldered. Birdlike, indeed. Terathopius ecaudatus. Pelecanus onocrotalus._

When they'd arrived from the mine we were prepared. Dead chickens hung from their fingers, entangled with claw-like talons. Strapped to Mercury's back, several prairie chickens hung, blood dripping from the smallest bird's beak. Ruby winced as the rocking chair creaked. Pauline and I sat on it, Ruby standing beside us. We feigned normalcy. When asked of Preach's whereabouts, Ruby and I shrugged. I thought, surely, that they could see through us like vapor, like lonely monochrome. I dared not steal a look at Ruby, for fear of shattering the subduance of expression, the Novocain, the anodyne. Anesthetic and narcotic.

Same as any other day, Neptune and Mercury did not stay long. For one terrible, silent, momentless moment, I thought they would take the birds to the freezer room, and come across the condemning corpse. No, they handed half to Big Mama, who carried them to the kitchen, and the other half Mercury and Neptune kept for themselves. They departed then, and I made sure they had been gone a good long while before I crumpled and told Lizard. _Everything._

"You know what happens now," he said, gravely.

"Yes," I sighed. "Yes I do."


	17. Chapter 17

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Okay, just to clear something up that might not make sense while you read it… At the end of the page, where it's all in italics and from a third person point of view – that part takes place from the time Netta is telling the story (roughly two years after the events she describes). The person she is telling the story to (that's right, she's not explaining it to you, the reader, _but to another character_) will become extraordinarily important in the sequel, which isn't really a sequel, but sorta is (you know?). I hope that makes sense to someone other than me. Anyway, just a heads up. I'll update again as soon as I get a few more reviews (heh heh).

My eyes shut, I listened as Lizard ran the end of the shotgun along the chain link fence. That day, it was hard to look out at anything, not unlike leaving a dark house for blinding light. Bleak, harsh, and glaring. I lay, stretched out over a rock not far from the front door of Fred's Oasis, waiting for Jupiter. Behind my eyelids, I saw only black, a shroud of nautical depth. I opened my eyes, and squinted upwards.

Lizard paced forward, drumming his fingers on the rock, then my shoe, then my knee. The butt of the shotgun knocked against the powdery gravel all along the ground. I could tell he was restless, that he wanted to hit or throw or shoot something, to hear it shatter and thud and crack.

"Oughtn't look at the sun," he drawled offhandedly. He tugged softly at the end of my hair, which had grown to such considerable length I would've missed it if I'd thought to shorten it. He, however, really could use a trim. I scoffed inwardly, knowing his white-blonde head had more to do with sand and desert than the fairness of his hair.

It had been near three months since they'd seen Neptune last, leaning against the entrance of his mine, his jaw set solidly and eyes roving unpleasantly. Lizard, Pluto, and Jupiter had driven by in the pickup truck that had belonged to Dylan's uncle, and set Preach's body, all wrapped in canvas, a safe distance away. Lizard told me Neptune hadn't moved, but he could hear his teeth grinding from his seat in the cargo bed of the truck.

Needless to say, Ruby, Big Mama, and I, along with all the children, were being kept under close supervision. But, after all this time, their concern had become more and more diminished, and I'd finally been allowed out. Though not alone. _I_ wasn't worried, hadn't been. I'd remained rather stoic since Preach's death. If Neptune and Mercury came for me, which at that point I doubted, they wouldn't get far. I had myself a personal firing squad, and as I had meant to tell Preach, I was not helpless. Beyond keeping Pauline under a reluctantly received lock-and-key, I thought us relatively safe. I look back on it now, and know it was an unreasonable calm.

Still, had Fred not told Jupiter and Lizard, specifically, to bring me to the gas station, I'd have been waiting for them in the test village, same a everyone else. I'd been thrilled, glad that I could stretch my legs outside the too-familiar town. And also disappointed. When Fred's voice came fuzzily over the radio, we thought he'd be telling us he'd sent another family into the desert. It had been awhile, the last one being Dylan and his relatives. The Family was getting desperate. They considered leaving for Hades' town, but Jupiter warned, "Us all out in the desert? With chil'ren and belongings? Neptune'd have our heads. Too dangerous to travel that far."

We'd arrived at the gas station, only to have Fred say, "Maybe it'd be better if I told Jupe first." So I sat, and I waited. And for the first time in months, I was anxious. Fred had given me an odd look, an odd look I recognized. He'd looked at me the same way when I first met him, back when Christian and Isabelle were still alive. When I'd been pregnant, nearing six months wide, and he thought he was sending me to my grave.

"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked Lizard.

He shrugged.

"Fred looked kind of worried, didn't he?"

He shrugged again. "Didn' notice."

I fidgeted nervously.

"_You_ the one worr-yin', Netta," he said. I stilled my hands, and smiled vaguely. He'd never quite gotten the hang of my name, always pronouncing it Neh-duh.

"No, no, it's just – he gave me a look."

He scuffed his feet against the ground. "A look?"

I laughed. "A _look_."

He frowned, thinking I was mocking him, and fingered the collar of his vest. He almost looked boyish, lanky and skinny as he was, chest bony. His sharp features in no way countered his surroundings. I'd heard, once, that owners always look like their dogs, and wondered if you could look like your home. I couldn't imagine him growing up here, being a little kid. Over four years, he never looked any different. Unchanging, same as the desert.

A deep long rolling sound was uttered skyward, a hypnotic sort of rumble. A remote expanse away, thunderclouds settled over an orange-brown mesa. Lightning ruptured the muggy thickness that separated the clouds from the land, a large conducting body. I'd forgotten to count the miles, the sweep of linear space.

"How far is the storm from us, do you think?"

Lizard stared out with some detachment, set his sights on the far removed blackness, the destination darkness. I sat beside him, yet there was a degree of separation, especially in time. A wide and open area, the fact or condition of being apart; a supreme dissociation from one's surroundings and worldly affairs. Between us, a lengthy extent, measured or unmeasured.

"Twenty miles, almost," he said. "'Round Hades' town. Highway 'nother ten miles south."

"Oh, so that's where the other mining town is."

"Just behind plateau, in the valley," he said, then remarked, introspectively, "Not had lightnin' since day you come here."

"Really? That long? But I don't remember there being lightning. Or anything at all, actually."

Lizard chuckled. "You was out cold, that why you don' remember."

I was curious at that, but apprehensive. I didn't like to think of myself as a victim, nor as frightened in their presence.

"How did that happen?" I asked.

"Pluto," he began, shaking his head at the thought. "Empty head. Oughtn't ever have a gun. Fred radio, say young kids driving out, that one expecting baby. Was going to leave you be, but Pluto see you first and crack you upside the head. You was out til' next day. Big, bad bruise."

"He… hit me with a gun?" I whistled. "That must have hurt."

"Yeh, _does_ hurt," Lizard said, grimacing, and remembering some particularly painful long ago injury. I'd have asked him to elaborate on that, but my thoughts were interrupted by the stretching of the screen door's springs. Swiftly, the coils brought the hinges back, just scraping by Papa Jupiter's shoulder. He growled irritably, pulling a large burlap sack from between the doorframe and himself, dragging his foot slightly. He and Lizard both, occasionally, hobbled after scaling long distances. They treated the detriment as a fugitive, trying to conceal it as best they could. It made me worry, as if the radioactivity had harmed them more than they let on, more than what was obvious. Lizard _was _much older than I; I forgot it sometimes.

"What the bag for?" Lizard called out to him.

"Gotta fix generator," Jupiter replied simply. Inside, the clanking of small aluminum equipment gave the answer away; tools, it sounded like.

"But – neither of the generators are broken," I said, thinking Jupiter was looking spooked, and making excuses. The two engines, which had been extracted from inside a couple of wrecked cars, and which powered the lights and electricity of the town, had been running smoothly since they'd been wired several years ago to all the houses.

"Maybe they will be, one day," he answered cryptically.

"Oh, okay. Sure, if you think so."

He glanced back at me, and glared when he saw Lizard's arm resting on my shoulder. Quickly, he pulled his arm away, and shrugged at my questioning look when Jupiter turned back around.

"So, what did Fred say?"

He ignored me, saying only, "Lightnin'. Not good to be out in the flatlands when there lightnin'."

Lizard licked his finger, and held it up above his head. "No worry," he concluded. "Wind blow east. Take storm with it."

Jupiter gave no answer.

I repeated: "What did Fred want to say?"

Abruptly, Jupiter paused, and I nearly collided with his back. He turned to face me.

"He say… he say man come looking for you."

I felt Lizard's grip stiffen on my shoulder. I might have told him _I would never consider leaving, not with anyone,_ but could hardly more than gape.

"_WHAT?_"

"Man come looking for you, an' he give Fred this." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, and handed it to me. It was a flyer, much like the missing person postcards or milk cartons you'd see, with pictures and information and the works. There I was, smiling big for the camera, and another me, pregnant and sullen and eighteen. Below both black and whites, my date of birth, the color of my hair and eyes, the date I went missing, written in bold blank ink. Along with that, it mentioned Pauline, though there was no name present; aged four years, it said, and offered her due date as a birthday. _It's a week off, _I thought to myself.

"How could they still be looking for me?" I said angrily. "Fuck! Haven't they given up yet!" I threw the flyer to the ground, and kicked it away.

"Fred say tall black man come looking, he a-"

"Pauline's dad isn't black."

Jupiter nearly chuckled. "I guessed as much."

I smiled, amused, though I didn't want to be. "I mean, I can't think of any tall black man who knows me well enough to search for me, after all this time."

Jupiter opened his mouth, then stopped.

"He wasn't a cop, was he?" I groaned.

"No," Jupiter said. "Private detective, Fred say. Work for your mama, an' Pauline's daddy."

"If my old family comes out here," I said, pulse heightening, "you – you can't hurt them. We'd have to, I don't know. We'd have to hide or something."

Lizard and Jupiter exchanged glances, so that I knew they intended otherwise.

"I'm not – I'm not fucking joking. We'd leave them alone."

Perhaps it was paranoia, but I could not manage to get either of them to meet my eye. I had two deaths on my conscious. I could not stand for more.

&&&&&&

_Sometimes, it was difficult to drag herself out of bed. Those were red days, and others were orange or yellow, and if she were very lucky it was white. Those days, she would wake to find Lizard asleep in a chair beside her, his legs up on the bed, his shoes dirtying the sheets. She would think about what it would have been like to die two years prior, along with most everybody else. She would think, _oh, dream, perchance to dream! Am I still as I was? Is he really there, or have I imagined all of this?

_Because you never know. She might still be there now, screaming and screaming and covered in blood, and all the corpses, and she thinking she'd rather her eyes had melted away and disappeared into her skull than to have seen the things she saw. She could be dead, and Lizard could be dead, and so could Aries and Capricorn. And that frightful, horrible man, grizzly and drenched and absolutely sodden, her family's blood all about his face and clothes and the broken lenses of his glasses, blowing her head to pieces with the shotgun that had gone tap-tap-tapping against the chain link fence. _

I shall wake him, _she would tell herself, _just to make sure all this is real.

_His eyes would open; and if it were a white day only, because on red and orange days the ghastly bullet wound would keep him from speaking at all, he would ask, "You okay, Netta?"_

_She wouldn't want to tell him the truth, that she'd been thinking about death, and how it felt to breathe just one-_

_last-_

_time. And that she couldn't just put up with it like he did, because she could not seem to keep herself from losing her family, The Family, over and over again. Awake and not awake; coping and not coping._

"_Now that they're dead," she would tell him, "they know everything."_

&&&&&&


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note:** I would have updated this earlier, but I just underwent some major computer failure. This'll be the last chapter before everything really nosedives out of happyville. So, be prepared for some character death in several days, and savor the last bit of neutrality before its gone. If you have anything to say, leave a review on your way out. Enjoy.

I woke in the night, clammy and thick and hot. A heavy pre-sweat stood still about my forehead and cheekbones, my neck and collarbone. I was overwhelmed by mechanical dissipation, each hole in my tongue always occupied (yes, occupied!) by the milk of the sun.

But the sun, now, had disappeared into the two black lips of time. And the neck on my head, now, a tunnel of dawn. I could remember only _that I was lying on my back, that I was falling asleep._ Pauline lay harmoniously, lyrically, _and each strand of hair is really insect eyes, and the long white nails that shoots from her toe is tickling my blood, and shifting its flow._ I had been asleep, and I dreamt that Lizard and I had been opposite one another, separated by stodgy, thickset glass. I sat in a shifty black chair, confined to my cubicle, a telephone in my hand.

"I'm always late. Yes, I'm always late," is what I said. I could make no sense of anything. One of us had been incarcerated, that I could tell. Was it he imprisoned, or I? There were no policemen, no guards, no one or thing save for the two of us. Just us stuck in that stark, blank, hellish prison.

But I was awake now, wasn't I? I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, listened to the steady breath that came rhythmically from Pauline._ And each lash of her eye is really bone marrow, and we go where the chalk white arrows go, and walk with a walk that is measured and slow. And I'm lying on my back, and I'm falling asleep. _

I knew I was half dreaming. I had never really been together with myself. I had always been apart. Gently, I lifted her, and creeped furtive-like out the front door. I knew, I knew that Lizard was gone, and though I had not checked so were Goggle and Jupiter. Neither Cyst nor Pluto sat stationed outside, a silent sentry, steely and steadfast. No matter. Neptune and Mercury; I could just tell they would not come.

The moon, large and luminous, cooling in the peppermint wind, lit the desert all to incandescence. The ground was light and soft it seemed, and the hills all marched, I was sure of it. They moved, and they watched me, and they had eyes and faces. It would have been easy to lose my footing, to slip and fall and fall and fall, and curl in on ourselves and meet our ends, Pauline and I.

It was all milky sky and milky lands and coolness on the breath, a chill in the air. Pauline clung to my neck, wrapped in a blanket. I'd not woken her, but she may have been only half dreaming like I. My raiment did not save me from the elements; clingy and white, musty cobweb green, a causeway of midriff. I stepped methodically, to the invisible strum of a guitar pick, and made my way a long, long distance.

I glimpsed him, standing by the edge of a peak in a blast of desert sheen. And each line in his skin is really red roots; and that seed, it grows all day, and that seed, it grows all night. And all our veins are intertwined. _And each strand of hair is really insect eyes._

I realized then that it was night, and the darkness would come, and it _had_ come and it was present and it was everywhere. I had taken a terrible risk walking way far out here; I had taken many terrible risks. And killing Preach, my God, it really _would_ be the end of me, wouldn't it? I had taken _such_ a terrible risk.

Lizard turned toward me, a torn red rag tied about the bottom half of his face. I could see, all bloody and pale, where he'd bitten down so hard on his lip he tore the skin apart.

I was losing touch, I knew it. I was shut so far inside myself.

He pulled the rag away from his face, running his tongue across the blood. He took Pauline from me, and laid a hand on my shoulder, urging me to sit. Had I looked as if I would keel over? I must have. I felt as though I might be ready to.

"Shouldn' be out," Lizard said, flicking an eyelash from Pauline's cheek. "Not alone."

"I wasn't alone. I was with Pauline."

"She got a gun hidden somewhere I don' see? She'll pull it out an' save you if Neptune an' Mercury waiting out there?"

"Of course. Do you really think I'd go out without a weapon?"

Lizard chuckled. I smiled sleepily, and laid my head on his leg, splayed across the desert floor. Pauline slept still in his lap, hands gripping his binoculars. Slowly, Lizard untangled her fingers from the cord.

"Better take a look," he told me, handing them over. Steadily, I lifted myself with one arm, took the binoculars from him, and peered through. Lizard pointed in the general direction of a large red monster of a car parked by Fred's Oasis. Inside I could see a young white man, and through the grimy window of the Oasis an older black man. It must have been near six in the morning; the dark of the sky had just begun to thin.

I had severely underestimated him. He had come all this way, after all this time, to try and find his daughter

"Recognize?"

"Yes," I sighed weakly. "Yes, I do. That's Pauline's father. Biologically, at least."

I did not take the binoculars away from my face. I'd have been no more surprised at what I saw if he had been some other distant figure straight from my past. My first grade teacher, perhaps. My downstairs neighbor, my mailman. I watched as Marcus stuck flyers identical the one Jupiter had shown me into each of the rusted mailboxes parallel to the crumbling road. I'd go back later. I'd get rid of them.

"You okay, Netta?"

"Don't ask me that," I told Lizard, more serious than not. "You've exhausted the question. Next time you say it, I better look really fucked up. I better look _really_ not okay."


	19. Chapter 19

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Sorry about taking so damn long, I've had a lot to do this past week. I cut this chapter short, so there won't be the really really important _thing_ I promised you last update (it was this or wait another couple of days to update at all). I won't take as long next time, _seriously. _Oh, again, the paragraphs in third person and italics are memories from years before this chapter. They're all relevant, trust me. This is a bit of a to be continued chapter, as the next one and this are entirely related. Also, if I get more than five reviews, my sister's giving me the twenty bucks I need to watch the Hills Have Eyes 2. No, this isn't a ploy to get you to comment, I really do want the money. I'm flat broke. Help me out here? Say whatever you like, I don't care. Just win me this bet!! Ha ha, thanks as always.

The swing set had been in the village longer than I. For decades, I imagined. Longer than Jupiter even. Certainly he was not the type to erect a playground component in a town so rustic and solitary that the swing set seemed surreal, mirage-like, stuck ridiculously dead center. Two mannequins sat upon the seats, the partially corroded chains twisted about their two-fingered hands. And I stood before them, sucking on a cigarette so inexpertly it could be inferred I'd never quite learned how to inhale properly.

I wore a thin tatty sweater, the zipper of which had so succeeded in pestering me I'd have torn it off had the thought struck me. I left it uneven and halfway undone, the hem on one side towering above its opposite. And a black dress. I was in mourning, you see, and despite the severe tear that kept the fabric from tapering proper-like, it was the only piece of clothing I owned that would suit the purpose of conveying this. More than any other day, I was vexed by the state of the village, the shamble of its occupants.

I exhaled a shaky stream of smoke out my nose, a long-forgotten yet familiar sense of tar settling at the back of my throat. If it took killing myself, increment by increment, to feel such satisfactory relief, so be it. I shut my eyes, rubbing their corners with my one free hand. Behind me, a scrape-thud shuffling of footsteps sounded. Goggle stood to my side, bent and squinting, his hand poised above my head as if to throw a net over the rising smoke. In the other, he held his walkie-talkie, the cord of his binoculars hanging from its antennae.

"Aren't you supposed to be watching them?" I asked, trying to sound indifferent.

He shrugged, and grinned a sharp-toothed grin. "Tires pop, they not move. Only yellin' a lot."

"Better not let Jupiter catch you, then. He's been in a pissy mood for days."

"Papa Jupe… pissy? Why he pissy?"

I laughed, albeit nervously. "I mean he's mad, Goggle. He's been in a bad mood for days."

He furrowed his eyebrows, puzzling it out. "Papa Jupe mad 'cause he pissin'?"

"What? No. Never mind what I said before. He'd mad, that's all."

He nodded in understanding, though I knew he'd ask me about it again later. "Then why mad? You make 'im be mad?"

"No. The man you're supposed to be watching made him mad."

"Which 'un? Pauline daddy, or black skin man?"

"Both. But more Pauline's dad, I guess."

Goggle barked out a laugh, saying, "But he not big problem. _Pow, pow!_ Then papa an' black skin dead. Lizard an' Pluto, they make small problem no problem."

I bristled at this, but played nice and ignored it. Once more, I wished my past had remained in my past.

Goggle's walkie-talkie, suddenly, came to life, a harsh guttural sound muttered through the speakers. It stopped, then began again.

"What is that?" I asked, scrutinizing the small dented machine. "Is it Pluto? What's he saying?"

"Not Pluto. I not find channel they set to. Couldn' talk to no one. Hadda get here to ask."

"I think Lizard's is set to 4400. I don't know about Jupiter or Pluto, but Big Brain is definitely at 4700, and – "

"I _know_ what Big Brain at."

"– and so is Cyst."

Quickly, he switched the transmission to channel 4700, interrupting the incessant breathing.

"What was that noise? It sounded like breathing, or a perverted call or something."

Goggle listened into the speaker, eavesdropping on a conversation between Cyst and Big Mama. "Mama must got Big Brain's walkie-talk," he said aloud to himself.

"Goggle!"

"What?"

"I asked what the breathing sound was."

He shrugged. "Static. Or trucker on highway wit' CB radio."

"It couldn't be. The hills block both highways in either direction for thirty miles, at least. They wouldn't get through this far."

"Then static. It nothing noise."

I didn't believe it anymore than I believed Neptune had any notion to exact his revenge. There was someone on the other end of that line, I was sure of it.

"Fine. Whatever."

I took a long drag out of my cigarette, the sound of the screen door slamming vaguely registering in my subconscious. Lizard stepped out, Pauline under one arm, the trigger-delayed spike strip held between his teeth. He struggled to pull on his vest with one arm, and Pauline, squirming and giggling, balanced on his hip. He set her down, only to be bombarded by the same repeated request: "Put me up! Up, up! Now!"

I closed my eyes, putting the cigarette out on the ground. Preach stepped forward, crushing the rest of it, effacing all remaining semblance of there ever being smoke and embers.

I rested my head back against the swing set, listening to Pauline's voice as she clambered back up Lizard's leg, her words broken and at times nonsensical. She had picked that up from The Family; their grammar-disregarding manner of speech. I had yet to train her out of it.

I sighed deeply, anticipation prickling at my limbs, a dazed incapacity behind my eyes. I listened, and I thought. And I did my best to remember.

&&&&&&&&&&

"Mommy? What that?" Pauline had asked her, pointing from the rocky shore of the rainwater ford.

_Netta hadn't seen it at first, the pale degenerate creature that swam lopsidedly in the shallow water. She struggled to peer through the rock-tinged murkiness of the collected rain, which had dwindled considerably in the years since she's arrived. It caught her attention, nearly stranding itself at the far end of a silt-ridden shoal. It was, she guessed, one in a long line of mutated generations. It was unproportional, flapping its way through the hurried catchment, and extraordinarily ugly._

"_That's a fish," she told Pauline. "A very odd looking fish."_

"_Can eat fish?"_

"_Yes, but not that one. That's a bad fish."_

"_Why it bad?"_

"_You mean, why _is_ it bad."_

"_Yep. Why is bad?" she revised, falsely correcting herself._

"_Because… it's not supposed to look like that. It's different from the other ones. And probably dangerous." She paused, and added, "To eat, that is. It won't hurt you otherwise."_

_Pauline contemplated this new information quietly, an oddly thoughtful expression on her face. "We bad fish, too?" she asked._

"_What?"_

"_We bad fish, too? We not look like others, neither."_

_Netta was tempted to say it was the opposite. If anyone was a 'bad fish', it certainly wasn't the two of them. She thought, bitterly, that it was a rather twisted metaphor._

"_No, Pauline. We're not bad fish. We're not fish at all."_

&&&&&&&&&&

Lizard stalked towards us, casting a hostile gaze in Goggle's direction, Pauline lagging behind. I forgot to tell Goggle that, yes, Jupiter was angry, but Lizard was infinitely more so.

He stood before Goggle, placing the spike strip over his shoulder, stooping to accommodate the extra pounds. His eyes bore into Goggle's, once-overing him maliciously: eyes, neck, shoulders, hands, knees, feet, and back up again. "Who tell you to stop watching 'em?"

Goggle hesitated, meeting my gaze. _Why didn't you warn me? _"Nobody," he admitted. "Sorry."

"Go back," Lizard growled. "Now."

In the time it took Goggle to absorb this, and begin to take a step back, a muscle in Lizard's upper arm jumped.

Hastily, spasmodically, he leaned back, fists clenched, and kicked Goggle square in the chest. He fell backwards, slammed against the ground, startling me so that I took a hurried step back. He struggled for breath, gasping hoarsely, squirming slightly (a gunshot echoed in my mind, an image of Dylan writhing before my eyes). Pauline, somehow, had managed to miss the kick, and stared puzzled at Goggle, who was now sprawled at our feet.

"Hey!" I called. "What the…? _What the fuck?_"

Goggle lifted himself with one arm, breath not yet restored, raspy and disjointed. Lizard crouched down beside him, and spoke harshly, near whispering, "I tell you to move. _So move!_"

He nodded, gathering himself up slowly, and distanced himself lengthily. I watched his sullen form disappear down the hills, clutching at his chest.

"That was completely unnecessary," I scolded angrily. Lizard straightened himself out, rolling his shoulders. _You're right,_ he seemed to be saying. _It was unnecessary._

I gave him a withering look, and, covering Pauline's ears, said, "You can be _such_ a fucking asshole sometimes."

He glared, yet shrugged nonchalantly.

I clucked my tongue in motherly disgust, and stormed off, taking Pauline with me. Her face still warped in confusion, she asked, pleadingly, "I go up now?"

I leaned down, offering my back, and she climbed aboard. I felt her smile into the back of my head, and wrap her arms severely around my neck.

&&&&&&&&&&

"_If you go down to the woods today_

_You're sure of a big surprise._

_If you go down to the woods today_

_You'd better go in disguise._

_For every bear that ever there was_

_Will gather there for certain, because_

_Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic."_

_Netta sang more to herself than to Pauline, though her presence did suffice to vindicate her of any possible accusations of nostalgia. The memory of the song had snuck up on her surreptitiously, and it made her wary. It made her watchful. It managed to substantiate an old worry of hers, that perhaps there were aspects of her old life that she would miss terribly. This was not something she could really place a finger on, wherever it was these thoughts came from. Originating, she supposed, from that creepy crawly part of her mind, where ghosts and haunts and long forgotten things clawed their way toward her hypochondria._

_She threaded a needle, poking it through the partially torn neck of Pauline's teddy bear. It was one of the few toys in the town still in perfect condition – or had been, anyway, before it got caught on the stray wires of a screen door. Now, its stuffing spilled out of the gaping wound, tangling itself into the ends of her hair, clinging to the carpet, faint wisps of it trapped beneath her fingernails. This, she knew, may very well have triggered the impromptu recollection._

_Made sleepy by the thick sunlight that pooled in the doorway, Pauline murmured, "Eat you up. Like Walrus. Like Carpenter."_

_Netta hesitated before continuing._

"_If you go down to the woods today,_

_You'd better not go alone._

_It's lovely out in the woods today,_

_But safer to stay at home._

_For very bear that ever there was_

_Will gather there for certain, because_

_Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic."_

_Pauline shifted in Netta's lap, settling herself at a peculiar and uncomfortable angle. It was an age Netta's own mother had called "The Terrible Two's". Pauline was nearly three, and though it was debatably the most adorable age, there were times Netta wished it would end sooner rather than later. She would not sit still, would not listen, would not pay attention, would not stop whining shrieking crying insisting beating her little fists into the ground._

_It was quite endearing, actually, but she duly deserved to be given a time-out for it._

_Behavior aside, Netta looked on Pauline as something so fragile and perfect it was hard to speak harshly to her. She was so frail, she was so beautiful. She wished Pauline would never grow up completely, for fear she would realize one day this wasn't what life was supposed to be like, and leave her poor young mother with only herself and The Family for company._

_She had never truly been alone before. Pauline had always been _a presence.

"_Beneath the trees, where nobody sees_

_They'll hide and seek as long as they please._

_Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic."_

_Pauline shut her eyes tight, announcing, "Night night, mommy."_

_Netta smiled to herself. "Sweetie, it's three in the afternoon."_

_Pauline gave no reply._

_Humming the last line, Netta completed the ritualistic ending to the lullaby._

"_Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic."_

&&&&&&&&&&

Jupiter's walkie-talkie sat on the mannequin's dining table, and I stood horrified in the doorway gawking at it. Through the speakers, I again heard the rough scratchy breathing, and very softly, very cryptically, I could swear I'd heard a choppy, ragged word.

"_Jupiter,_" it said, near growling, near rolling its tongue.

From the next room, the squeaking of Big Brain's chair overtook the soft static-ridden words that seeped from the speakers. Stuck halfway into one of his daylong rants, he repeated, like a broken record player, "They come with their bombs. They tell us… leave our homes! They turn ev'ry thing… to ashes."

It was hard to tell what kind of grasp Big Brain had on his own mind. As Big Mama's older half brother (they shared a deceased father, but neither of their mothers had made it past their births), he was constantly tended to. Even so, he was prone to temporary, yet daily, in consolidation of the mind. This, at least, was better then when he had rasped, over and over, "Ring around the rosy. Pocket full of posy. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

But now, I needed desperately for him to shut up. I maneuvered Pauline off my back and into my arms, rushing into the next room. Big Brain craned his neck around to accommodate my position in his reclusive hideaway, his sharp teeth exposed.

Flapping my hands at him, I insisted, "Shh, shhh! Be quiet a moment, please!"

He was silent, even as Pauline pulled herself from me and climbed on to his lap. In his face was an obvious cringe of pain, but he shook his head as much as was possible when I took a step to remove her. I mouthed a quick apology, and returned to the dining room.

I grabbed the walkie-talkie off the table, pressing it to my ear. There was still the breathing, and again a hissed indistinct word.

My heart stopped dead in my chest when I recognized the voice. _But – but he was killed ages ago!_ Yes, Saturn had been cold in his grave for years.

I remembered the _things_ he said to me, to Lizard. _"Not what'cha think," he had laughed. "But I was just gettin' to that."_

He had been so undeserving of the quick death he received. By all means, his actions had merited Preach's own end. That is, if he was dead at all. Now – now I was not certain.

I hardly noticed as Jupiter entered the room, asking, "Who that speaking?"

My temple ached, the familiar knot in my side, which had never quite gone away after Saturn viciously crushed a rock into my ribs, trembled. I flinched, recalling the shriek he'd so effortlessly elicited from me as the bones snapped, twisting themselves away from one another.

"_Listen,_" I told Jupiter, handing the walkie-talkie to him as I pulled myself a chair, knocking the mannequin from it's seat.

He did, squinting in concentration as he strained to hear. I felt where the ribs had never quite realigned themselves without a doctor to bind or inspect them. They still pained me, though not often. I never slept on my right side, and sometimes avoided holding Pauline for the pain it would cause me.

"Who does that sound like to you?" I asked, hoping to God he would not have similar thoughts.

"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "Couldn' be. Lizard cut his throat."

We stared at one another for a long moment, not caring as Big Brain began again, speaking to Pauline. "They come with their bombs. They destroy our homes!"

Softly, though with vindictive purpose, Jupiter said, "Nobody get left behind in town today. We all go on hunt. We keep close eye on chil'ren."

I sagged in my chair, knowing this was not the answer I had wanted to hear.

&&&&&&&&&&

_Of all the deaths she had witnessed, it was still her father's that was most vivid. The smell of the funeral home, the drab, sallow look the childish black dress had lent to her face. How her mother's fingernails bit through the fabric and into her shoulders._

_She could not understand it. It had been cancer that did this, and it had been a long time coming. Why all this grief when they'd all known how he would end up? She had mourned the diagnosis, not the death. Though even then she had not cried her eyes out._

_Yes, it was true. She'd never been much of a daughter. In fact, she was a complete failure of a daughter. She'd never loved either of her parents, regarding them only with cool complacency. Perhaps there was a time when she had, though she could not recall it. By no means did she hate them, or even vaguely dislike them. There was just – no need for tears anymore, that's all._

_The funeral goers' pitiable attempts at much unneeded consolation angered her. It would be another couple of years before her mother remarried and Pauline became her step-sister, so there was only she to pick apart, only her carcass for them to tear to pieces._

"_You've got to be strong for your mother now, sweetie," they told her. She was ten years old, and had no intentions of being strong for anyone. Within the walls of her mind, she asked them to kindly fuck off._

_It was then she came to the realization that she had never looked to anyone for love, and that she had never wanted anyone to rely on her for it, either._

&&&&&&&&&&

Out the car window, I could see as far out as the beginning of the Ergs, the vast region of undulating dunes resembling ocean waves frozen in an instant of time. Bordering this was the mountainous and basin outcrops, where the Test Village could be found. There were the plateau landforms of the Hamada deserts and rock pavement of the Regs, comprising of sparse vegetation nearing the eastern highway. Somewhere in there was Hades' clan, much larger than our own if you included the Sisters and all the children they bore through Chameleon mostly, though the other men as well. At the other end were the Badlands, located at the margins of the only real Oasis. Exposed bedrock and sediment dispersed itself throughout, interrupted only by the volcanic dust left behind by some prior age of the Earth.

Neptune and Mercury presided in their somewhere, amidst the coyotes that systematically rid the nearby Oasis of any habitation. The mine in which they took up residence had caved in on itself years before even the bombs were dropped, abandoned long ago back when the people had no need to hide themselves.

And now we traveled the Flatlands, the car bumping violently along the worn path towards the empty eight-mile expanse of desert, obstructed by the Rain Shadow Mountains beyond the gas station. I sat irritably beside Lizard, Pauline with Ruby and the twins in the cargo bed of Dylan's truck. Through the closed windows we could hear them shriek and play with Lizard's walkie-talkie.

He steered haphazardly, the wheels twisting and switching direction harshly, followed by the thunk and then laughter that signaled our four passenger's collision with the opposite wall of the cargo bed. He was making it rather obvious that he wasn't pleased with my earlier defense of Goggle. We glared at each other briefly through the reflection of the rear view mirror.

"So it'll be you who does it, then?" I asked, hostile yet genuinely curious.

"I do what?"

"Kill him. You're going to be the one who kills him, aren't you?"

He gave me a long hard look via the rearview mirror, though vaguely sympathetic. "You not want him dead," he replied, more a statement than anything else.

"No, I do," I told him hurriedly, apologetically. "I just wish –"

Nothing. I didn't want anything. Or I did, but didn't know what. One of the many craters passed us by, the skeletal vehicles fallen into disuse and disrepair. I sighed. The rendezvous point was visible now. We could see the car Jupiter had driven in with The Family, parked behind the outer edge of a high cliff overlooking the surrounding area, the steep drop daunting above us. Only Big Brain had opted to stay behind, refusing to be helped into the car.

"You dead if they come here," Jupiter told him.

"I'm dead anyway." He'd meant it jokingly, but I heard the undertone of gravitas stand out in his voice.

"Let them come," he concluded. We let him be.

As we climbed out of the car, we became aware of Jupiter's harsh words toward Goggle. "You shouldna' come back, boy. You 'spose to watch 'em. Now see what happens, an' we got no idea how!"

"What happen?" Lizard called. Jupiter shushed him, pointing towards some point behind the cliff. I checked around the rock face, glimpsing Marcus' car roughly three hundred feet in the distance.

"Black skin man dead. Goggle ain't here when it happen, so we don' know how."

Lizard growled under his breath, ignoring me as I snatched his binoculars from him. A closer look revealed Marcus' frenzied eyes as he grappled with a spare tire, a pistol visible from between his belt. There was blood staining the hem of his shirt, smeared across his neck.

"Got hold of detective's gun," Jupiter told me. Goggle shuffled in place, looking embarrassed. He handed a long rifle to Lizard, who turned to Jupiter questioningly.

"You good shot," he said, and pointed to the instep of the cliff, how it curved and eventually ended within thirty feet of Marcus' car. "Go to end of hill. Shoot 'im from there."

And that was the last I heard before I took off into the darkening late afternoon, air raid sirens going off inside my head, that dazed incapacity thick and ever-present behind my eyes. It was that unfamiliar terror that possessed me, as it had before my malignant brush up with Saturn and Crypt. Yes, the Novocain, the anodyne! Anesthetic and narcotic.

I slowed down, nearly halfway there before I realized I'd taken Pauline with me.


	20. Chapter 20

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to saosorisamaofthemoon, chaos, sami, Callie, emalina29, and Mad Red Queen for winning me the bet! The Hills Have Eyes 2 was a cinematic experience (those are fancy words) made sweeter by the fact that the ticket and popcorn were paid for by my loving sister. If only you could have seen her face, ha ha. The real author's note will be at the end of the page, but I suggest not reading it until you've finished the chapter. Once again, the first passage of all italics is a memory from roughly four years prior, and the second passage in all italics happens about two years after the events of this chapter. Enjoy.

_The box said it would be three minutes before the results were clear. A pink line, or a blue line; pregnant, or not pregnant. She sat on the bathroom counter, stomach and hands wrapped tightly about themselves. _

_"Okay," Marcus said, equally nervous. "Now we just have to wait."_

_Inwardly, she commended him on his _phenomenal _conversation skills._

_"So…" she said, reminding herself to breathe. "What do we do if it shows up pink?"_

_He evaded her eyes, biting his lips. "You could… get an abortion, right?"_

_Without hesitating, she retorted, sternly, "_No_."_

_He was visibly taken aback. "What? Why not?" She wanted to tell him that was a stupid fucking question, but, after all, she had always insisted upon her being pro-choice. By all means, an abortion was a rather viable option. But, honestly, she'd always been particularly faint of resolve. She could never go through with it._

_"It'd be my baby," she said. "It wouldn't be the same."_

_Moments passed, layers and layers of silence imposed on the both of them._

_Marcus checked his watch, foot tapping. "Two minutes."_

_"Jesus Christ," she muttered, not quite audibly._

_He cracked his knuckled, interrupting the silence once more. "I can't give up the scholarship."_

_She groaned. The _fucking _scholarship, again. She'd been happy for him, at first. A scholarship to Brown was not some easily dismissible accomplishment. Then this had happened, and she wished his SAT scores hadn't been so goddam high. She felt guilty thinking it, or almost did, anyway. She knew his family had never been affluent, not at all, and his less scholarly younger brother was even considering the National Guard as a means to go to college. She near laughed at the thought. Despite his nickname, 'Napoleon' had always been a mild mannered pacifist. Certainly not gun toting material. _

_When she didn't reply, he said, "Once I get my degree, and a job, maybe we'd move in together?"_

_She scoffed. Unlikely, after eight or so years, and undesirable. Perhaps, though, it was the most practical plan of action. _

_Again, he checked his watch. "One minute."_

_Her thoughts were hurried. She could raise the baby herself, couldn't she? She could be a good mother, better than her own. Loving and kind and all that. She could have the bond with the kid like her mom hadn't. That love-hate single mother deal. Why not? It could work. She pressed her hand to the space just below her stomach, really thinking about it. _

_Yes, it would work. She had always been dynamic, thrifty. She was smart, she was sensible. She'd a knack for making things happen. She could manage motherhood without him. _

_Assuming, of course, there was a baby at all._

_For the last thirty seconds or so, she counted the strokes of the second hand, audible through their lack of speech. One, two, three…_

_The watch seemed almost to pause a moment before Marcus said, "Time's up."_

_Slowly, with some effort, she willed the muscles in her hand, her fingers, to unfurl. They met eyes and exhaled shakily, then simultaneously stared down at the pregnancy test that lay flat on her palm._

_Despite her recent decisiveness, she felt the bottom of her stomach fall away moments before the rest of her did._

_"Oh, fuck," Marcus hissed, with remarkable astonishment for what she had quite readily expected._

_&&&&&&&&&&_

I thought, for mere seconds, that I might return, if only to keep Pauline ignorant of her father. I paused to look back, imagining Jupiter holding Lizard down, from blowing their cover, from chasing me and dragging me towards safety. _Something_ had happened to Marcus out there, something we hadn't seen. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had witnessed the private detective's untimely end, and he would not hesitate to shoot some strange looking desert man that came running at him with a gun.

It occurred to me Lizard may have broken away from Jupiter by now, and that he'd be rushing to get to the far end of the cliff, where he could get a good shot at Marcus. Again, I ran, knowing if I got to him first Lizard wouldn't risk the shot, not if Pauline and I were nearby.

And maybe – maybe if Marcus had come this far he _should_ meet Pauline before he was killed. I had no intentions of saving him, not at all. But he deserved something, didn't he? I owed him an introduction, at the very least.

It was only within a few feet of him that he turned to face us. I know he heard our footsteps, obvious be his freezing in the midst of his work. A spare tire had been fastened to the spokes of the dusky red four-wheel drive, the ruined one lying on its side by his feet. He picked himself up from his crouching position, and about-faced. His sun scraped face was visible now.

He made no move to speak, to embrace me. He stared absently at my flat belly, then up at my face. I felt something in my chest fall apart, vacate the premises. I recognized, clearly, that panic stricken look in his eyes, the dullness that meant he'd seen something that really fucked him up.

I gripped Pauline's hand, reinforcing my presence. "Hi," I said. One simple word, after four years. A lifetime, it seemed.

When he didn't reply, I asked, "You've been searching for me?"

"Yeah, I've been looking for you," he told me, his voice a surrealistic monotone. "Your mom and I – we hired a private detective, after two years." He paused, saying, almost apologetically, "We would have earlier. But the police kept saying they had leads. Thought you'd run away, or been killed."

"How about the others? Peter, Christian, and Isabelle?"

"All the other kids, too. There were search and rescue parties, looking for a crashed car. But no one knew where to start looking. There was an investigation for months. When we hired the private detective we asked the other parents if they wanted to be included." He shook his head. "But – you were the only one without a space in the cemetery. The others gave up when the police did."

He laughed. "I was a suspect for awhile. They said I had a motive. But there was no proof, and the others were missing, too. So it became a cold case."

_Oh! _I cringed in silence, tears threatening to surface at the corners of my eyes. _Oh, I'm so sorry._

There were a thousand things I could have said then. _This is your daughter,_ perhaps. _Her name's Pauline._ I might have tried to tell him about being stranded in the desert, about being attacked. About surviving, and how he couldn't tear me away from this place, on matter how hard he tried. That I was sorry, most of all.

Instead, I asked, "What about the scholarship? To Brown?"

He nodded, contemplating. "I went, at first. Then you were missing, and I thought they would find you eventually. I almost dropped out on the baby's due date. You called and told me the date a week before you disappeared, remember? But I stayed, still. And then – it was your nineteenth birthday, you know? I decided to forfeit the scholarship."

It was fitting, that I had thought he'd ruined my life when I got pregnant, and it wound up differently. That I'd wrecked his future. Marcus wrung his hands, gaze fixed on Pauline.

"Is that her?" he asked, as she pressed her face into my leg. Hiding. "Is that the baby?"

I nodded.

He smiled toothily. "I always knew you'd get your way. That she'd be a girl."

I coaxed her out of her hiding place. "Pauline," I said. "This is your daddy."

"Pauline? Your sister said you might name her that," he spoke softly, with substance now. That quaking frenzy, his air of stillness, had gone lax. I felt the worry in the pit of my stomach subside.

He knelt down, reaching out for Pauline. He formed several sentences with his mouth, but managed only, "Hey, Pauline. I've been waiting a long time to meet you."

She stared up to give me a quizzical look. "Nuh uh. He isn't daddy," she chided, shaking her head. She turned to him. "Lizard is. Not you, silly."

_Oh, shit._

A different kind of insanity returned to his face. Misunderstanding, fueled by anger, and perceived insult. Constant current electricity struck my veins, ran scorching to my fingertips. _Oh, shit._

I fumbled for words, eyeing the blood across the bottom of his shirt. "Marcus, what – what happened to the detective?"

"He 'kicked the bucket,'" he told me, deranged laughter eerily present in his voice. "Do you remember when you told me what that _really_ means? What it originates from?"

I didn't, but I told him yes. It wouldn't matter for long. He'd be dead soon, and then none of his words would mean anything at all.

"You'd stand on a bucket, tie the noose around your neck, then kick it away. To kill yourself. 'Kick the bucket.'" He laughed again. I took a step back.

"_Who_ killed him? Was it you?" I thought I heard a footstep behind me. _Good._ Jupiter, most likely. He would look normal to Marcus, under that trench coat.

He shook his head, giving no other reply except to stand upright sharply, removing his gun from his back pocket. His eyes were fixed on some point above and beyond my shoulder.

"What're you –?" I took another quick step back, pressing Pauline to me.

And I collided with someone. I felt the ends of a long coat, the presence of two other men besides. Jupiter, Goggle, Lizard – _thank God._

"Hold on," I told them, not wanting Pauline to watch Marcus' execution, or even be in the same area. "Wait for she and I to leave."

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed light reflecting in the sun, not quite thirty feet away. The fiberglass fibre stocks of a long rifle – in the hands of a man I thought had been right behind me. Lizard, and he was running towards us.

I heard the barrel of a gun click by my ear, the cold, hard roughness of metal pressed into the back of my head. "No," a harsh voice growled, the one that I'd heard through the walkie-talkie. "You not leavin' us yet. Not 'til I say."

I felt my face throb. Once.

Marcus stumbled backwards, near tripping over the side-split tire, saying, "Those are the ones who did it, Netta! Those are the ones!" He pointed the gun at –oh, fuck – at Mercury, who stood to one side of the man who could not _possibly_ be Saturn, sporting a nasty gash down the line of his jaw. He held a torn rag over the flesh wound, the blood leaking through and snaking down what little there was of his arm. Mercury spat at Marcus' feet, mumbling, "Fucker got me good."

Then, as suddenly and noxiously as a disease, Neptune stood over me, grabbing my upper arm and shoving me against the dusky red car, appraising Pauline with a scrutinous gaze before remarking, "Thought we forgot about you, Mama? Brought baby out for fun now?"

I could see Saturn's face now, the long ropy scar that stretched across the disfigured skin of his neck. "You're dead!" I asserted, unbelieving. "You've _been _dead!"

To my left, training his pistol now at Saturn, Marcus barked, "Who are these fucking people, Netta?" I didn't answer, my eyes on Saturn's automatic. I recognized it as the gun Dylan's father had brought with him to fix the car we had left as a decoy. Neptune must have picked it up after the ambush months ago.

Saturn laughed. "Nah, I think I make it."

It was then Lizard reached us, screeching to a halt before Marcus. He stared wide-eyed at Lizard's jaw, muttering, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

There was silence only for moments before Pauline tearfully wailed, "Daddy!" She reached a hand out for Lizard, receiving a blatant look from Marcus.

"It's okay, honey," I whispered, inching away from Neptune as inconspicuously as I could. "You stay put, alright? Mommy loves you."

"What you doin' here, Saturn?" Lizard gaped incredulously, eyeing the scar just as I had.

Saturn offered a large manic grin, countering his malicious glare. "Thought I'd 'ave another go wit' your bitch."

At once, we both stepped forward. I pitched myself in Pauline's direction, taking her in my arms before Neptune grabbed the hair closest to my scalp and threw me to the ground. Lizard slammed the butt of the rifle into Saturn's face, pushing him backward, visibly breaking his nose. Saturn dropped his gun, and I near had it in my hands before Neptune snatched it away.

"Fuck!" Saturn yelped, scrambling to assume Neptune's place behind me, holding me in place by the back of my neck. The blood pouring from his nose, leaking through his fingers, dripped onto my shoulder, but I dared not move.

"Step back!" Neptune yelled at Lizard and Marcus, both of whom complied, though their two guns towered dauntingly over his one.

"Lizard!" I shrieked. "_The radio!_"

Saturn elbowed me in the ribs, striking my previous injury. I gasped, my breath struggling through the pain. My knees buckled, loosing Pauline's grip on my legs. "That still smartin', Mama? You don' heal so well, not like Papa do," he drawled into my ear, one hand at the base of my throat and the other perilously low, groping at the small of my back. "Saturn oughtta fix 'er up for you, Mama. Better'n Lizard, you'll see."

I ignored that foreboding feeling in my gut, my stomach turning upside down, ignored whatever disgusting thing Saturn had to say for himself, not peeling my eyes away from Lizard unhitching the walkie-talkie from his belt. We were just far enough so that you'd have to look through binoculars to see us at all – Lizard would have to radio Jupiter to get help. I saw Marcus glance at the walkie-talkie, and begin to speak to Neptune.

"Hey, hey! Let me take the kid! We've got no quarrel with you! Let me take the kid!" he bellowed, taking two slow steps forward Pauline, who floundered in between Marcus and I, looking lost. Briefly, I thought he meant it as a distraction, until I saw the stern line of his mouth, his move to take Pauline. I panicked.

"No! _No!_" I shrieked, struggling against Saturn. "Don't take my baby! _Don't take her away!_" I bit my tongue as Saturn kicked me to my knees, Pauline just beginning to dissolve into tears in response to my outburst.

I watched as both Neptune and Mercury took their eyes away from Lizard, giving him the time to call for help. Neptune seemed almost to consider Marcus' request, until he pointed the gun at his feet, and pulled the trigger. Pauline's hysteria rose to scarcely fathomable heights as the bullet pierced the newly replaced tire, deflating instantaneously thereafter. Marcus' face spoke of pure terror as he watched all life whistle out of the tire. The pistol grew lax in his grip.

Quickly, with their backs turned, Lizard snapped the walkie-talkie out of his belt, yelling into it, "Jupiter! Get to car now! _Jupiter!_"

Met only with white noise, Mercury and Neptune hurriedly shifted their attention back to Lizard, up in arms once more.

"4700!" I screamed. "They're on channel 4700!"

Switching channels, Lizard was poised to call for help once more, but the radio, like the tire, exploded into shrapnel before it could be used. It was no longer necessary – The Family had to have heard the gunshots, even at the distance they were from us.

"Shit!" Lizard cursed, biting down on his hand, sucking on his burned fingers. Saturn covered my mouth with his bloody hands, thrusting me back towards the gully created by the cliff's sharp turn in on itself. I protested loudly, shrieking and tearing myself from him as I was dragged further and further from Pauline.

"Don' move!" Lizard called, skirting around Neptune and Mercury, aim switching between both parties. "Don' move her, you son of a bitch!"

It was then I pulled myself away, running for Pauline, and Mercury pounced at Marcus. It was simultaneous – Neptune whirled around just as I grabbed her, and Mercury wrestled the gun away from Marcus. Unable to grasp it, the pistol was knocked to the ground, laying several feet from me. I stood to take it, only to find myself at the wrong end of the muzzle of Neptune's firearm. I stared into it moments before the crack of two gunshots went off synchronously, and I prepared myself for contact. For all encompassing darkness.

_&&&&&&&&&&_

_The desert glowed dimly beneath the early morning sun, pale and visible through the large bedroom window. An assembly of dolls were laid across the floor, their two-patterned dresses spread like jellyfish, pooling on the floor underneath them. Aries sat atop the small cot, reciting their names to the silent woman who sat with her. _

_"What's this one's name, Aries?" Netta asked, picking it up gently and feigning genuine curiosity for the sake of playing along. _

_"Isabelle." _

_Netta nodded, knowing Aries must have heard the name from her and taken a liking to it. She pointed to the doll Aries held to her chest. "And that one?"_

_"That's Pauline, silly. You know her."_

_She bristled briefly, and thought about slapping the doll's lifeless countenance away. One of its eyes was missing; it's dress the color of old newspaper, its corner turning in on itself. It's general appearance portrayed archaism, a moth-eaten, atavistic quality. Slowly, she took the doll by the waist, and ran a thumb across its nose and plasticine cheekbones._

_She laid it down on the cold floorboards, and left the room. Aries stared after her, pouting, and told the doll, "Don't worry, Pauline. Big Mama say Lil' Ma jus' sad, that's all."_

_&&&&&&&&&&_

She wasn't making a sound, not a damn sound. Just the labored in and out of her breath, which came to me as clearly as the pounding of my heart in my ears.

The worst part of it was, I felt no pain. Not because I'd gone into shock, or he'd misfired, or because my nerves had been shot to hell. But because no bullet had traveled the expanse of me, nor had either gun been entirely trained at any part of me. My fingers curled, feeling for the empty space of air where I had just grasped my baby's wrist.

I felt my face throb. Once.

Watching blankly, my notice faint, I glimpsed Neptune stumbling under the potency of Lizard's shot, barely managing to maintain his grip on the handgun. Saturn pitched forward, heading for the gun that lay within reach, that had fallen to the ground. I seized it before he, all my senses crashing back down, pushing me to the edge of what is bearable.

I circumvolved, and squeezed the trigger.

Bang and a clear kick to my shoulder caps. Red mist burst from the back of Saturn's skull; his head jerked back, and over he went. He landed on his back on the rocks and lay still.

Another crack of a gun let me know Neptune had been finished off. I let the automatic drop, returning to its bed amongst the ash and stone.

I finally allowed myself to look at her.

She was staring at me, and she wasn't staring at me, and it was minutes before I knew the scream that rattled and rung and rendered me thoughtless issued out from my own lungs.

I was upon her, and there was blood and it was on my hands and I screamed screamed screamed. There was movement behind me, in the corners of my eyes. Marcus doubling over, footsteps and sound and voices. Lizard pulling me to my feet, dragging me away and saying my name, though I heard no words. He mouthed something indistinct, something I should have been able to hear. I read a definite, "Close your eyes!" He might have told me to be quiet, that he couldn't think, that I had to stop stop stop and get away. But I could process none of this, could only think of consecrated earth and mineral matter and rock and blood and skin. Of grindstone, millstone, gravestone. Of the scarcity of plant life, only the sparse brown weeds prickling beneath my hands as I kneeled by Pauline, where bad things never happen. The air was suffocating, charged, the hungry dismal plants sucking at the earth. I could _see_ them grow, pressing their fat green tongues up through the black earth. They emerged selfish and starving, gasping for air. He wrapped his arms around me once more, trying to take me away from there, the roar of the wind through the gully deafening and mind warping.

I forced myself from him, taking my baby's hand, moaning something indistinct, something I can scarcely recall. Keening, almost. He checked over his shoulder behind us, eyes frantic over whatever struggle played out between those who remained. He turned back to me conclusively, some plan of action decided upon, the air of heightened energy he had about him desperate.

He grabbed me again, and, in a last attempt to calm my hysteria, to quieten me, to keep me from getting myself or him killed, struck me fiercely across the brow. My stomach dropped moments before the rest of me did, falling back.

Before the pending darkness took me, I glimpsed, with mild interest, Lizard's back facing me, running to contend once more with whoever was left. Pluto and Cyst had reached us, alerted by the gunshots, cursing and raising one gun at some target in the distance. The shot was muted to my ears.

I ached sharply from time to time, the rock and sand beneath me sharp and jagged.

Only half-seeing, I rolled my eyes far back, vision blurred, striving now for Pauline. I glanced passingly where she lay, hardly able to move myself before I lost the faint grasp of consciousness that remained with me.

For a brief moment, her foot drew back – quivering – as when long-winged thrushes or doves become entangled in a snare. But not for very long.

_&&&&&&&&&&_

**Another Author's Note: **Well, now you see I don't shy away from character death. Saturn's presence will be explained next chapter, so don't worry, that will all make sense soon. If you've seen the Hills Have Eyes 2, you may have noticed my mentioning of 'Napoleon' as Marcus' brother. Yep, that's just me having a little fun. Feedback and reviews and all that would be MUCH appreciated, given that I was always uncertain about this chapter and everything that happens. I'd love to hear what you have to say about my choices pertaining to Pauline. As always, thanks for reading. 'Til next update.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note:** So, I know I probably should have a good excuse for taking almost a month to update, but I don't. I've got an excuse for this past week, though – I've been writing a new story. A House of Wax fic, to be more specific. I haven't posted the first chapter yet, but when I do I'd appreciate it if you all checked that out, and a review is always nice. But no pressure, especially since I've been a lazy non-updating bitch. Next chapter will be up relatively soon, being that I've had it written longer than even this chapter. I've been rearranging the Cradle to the Grave lately (nothing already up has been changed, though), so this'll be a little shorter than originally intended, and next chapter will be a little longer. And, no, nothing about Marcus this chapter, but you'll find out what's to become of him soon. Enjoy, I hope.

There are unexplainable inconsistencies riddled throughout my drift back towards cognizance. I see him; he is there in our house with us, as suddenly and noxiously as a disease. I hear myself screaming shrilly far inside my ears, and its not until many weeks later that I realize it was the cells dying, shrieking and curling in on themselves as a result of the gunshot's harried proximity to me. Once that pitch has dissipated, I'll never hear it again. Perhaps I should have enjoyed it before the reversal of materialization.

I see him! He crouches down to me, grabs hold of my hair, and says, "We even now." The muzzle of Neptune's gun swallows me whole.

Maybe I should feel liberated. There is nothing that can be done to me now, nothing more penetrating.

I see her face a thousand times before I come to. Stony and cold; safe, now, forever. It is all his doing, and I feel, now, that it is mine as well. That I am responsible, and that this knowledge pushes me to the edge of what is bearable.

_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death._

When I have come out of it completely, Lizard is waiting there for me. My eyes are still not cooperating, nor the intense pain, the inheritance of loss, or the sense that I have forgiven him, and that he is undeserving.

His face shimmers in the fog, and I sometimes think that I can see it. It is all unfamiliar, the look of complete incomprehension that he communicates.

He takes my hand.

I shake my head, panicking.

"I don't want this," I say.

"Stay," he tells me. "We go slowly." I feel myself losing whatever toehold I've managed to remain hinged to in reality. My head lolls in all its faintness. My fingers and gut are devoid, empty. I hear a honeybee lurch drunkenly, heavy and staggering under the weight of all its botanical density. Lizard's grip tightens, forcing me back to the packed and thorny branches of what is real.

"We go slowly," he repeats.

With an authority more assumed than convincing, he leads me along the austerity of the Test Village. There is an air of atrophy that is stifling, and I find it will not enter my lungs, that it will not let me breathe.

I move reluctantly, a slight resistance in his hand, a shrinking back from each step taken. My hand in his is like that of a child who cannot keep up, or who does not want to keep up, with an adult. He tries to convey confidence in his grasp, holding my hand firmly, not giving way to my resistance. He looks at my face. The too bright light makes his own sharp in its clarity, the scars and deformities finely detailed, the blue-green eyes vivid and uncompromising.

Men with the eyes of beasts, feral and strange. This place is inhabited with such peculiarity.

I have a sense now of how strange this outing is for him, retracing a journey made in boyhood and in manhood, made then with the easy, unselfconscious movements of one who is effortless, and not made without hardship since. Her death has affected him, too. The journey is to me the way a blindfolded walk through a foreign city would be to him, hazard awaiting each tentative step, a sense of complete and frightening helplessness but for the guide.

He takes me to where she can be found.

There is a blanket draped over her, only her hand visible from beneath the covering. The tips of her fingers have slipped into blackness. I struggle to remember exactly, exactly how long it has been since I have spoken to her. The thin blanket traces the shape of her Peter Pan nose.

Oh, the _things_ that break your heart.

I turn and press myself to him, sobbing into his chest. My breath comes short and shallow; there is a beast in my gut. I feel it scraping away at the inside of my ribs.

It's not until days later, when we are in the mine, that I am really thinking again. I stare across the pickaxes and photographs set up like crosses in a graveyard, glancing at the newest addition to this nightshaden plot. I had not thought death had undone so many.

I feel that I am oddly separated, that I am outside myself and set entirely apart. That I don't share this history, though I've moved within its walls. A feeling comes over me, of days stretching after days, of Pauline being so far underneath us. I will feel and smell my baby, if only from what she has left behind. A part of her is inside me, and I will always have that. But I will never see her face.

_Six feet below, where the coffin worms go._

I linger long after the others. There is scorched earth here, and coal-black ash that peels away from the walls. I press it to my face, feel it inhabit my skin. Like the sand that is blown across the desert, it will never wash out of me entirely. The mine is deadly and it tells me this.

I will leave this place and not come back, and in my dreams it will turn to dust.

_For in that sleep of death, what dreams?_

When I have left the mine behind me, I am full of images, not unlike bright bits in a kaleidoscope. Lizard waits for me outside the maw of this cavern, and the ground lurches beneath me when I try to bring him into focus. Soon, all my memories of him Before Pauline will have to be redrawn, recast. And of Ruby, Jupiter, Goggle, the rest of The Family, I think dizzily; all those I knew when Pauline did not quite exist yet.

I am too afraid to form the question, knowing that his answer will be permanent, unshakable. But I have to know.

"Did you see him?" I ask. "Did you see Saturn alive and not tell me? So I wouldn't worry?"

He doesn't answer me directly. He leans his head back and peers at me through half-open eyes. He is alight in a blast of sun, of desert sheen.

"No," he tells me.

There is honesty in this, and it makes me weightless. This means no one knew, only Neptune and Mercury, Saturn and Preach. By this time, I have pieced together what had happened while I was out cold. I know that, when they found Mercury, dead and no longer bleeding from the shot that had come muted to my ears, he had escaped nearly to the entrance of their shelter in the Badlands. They searched the caved-in mine, but there was no others to be found. It was then I knew, with a terrifying clarity, with a certainty that goes beyond certainty, that those who had remained with Neptune when the families split had been dead years before I'd come to know these desert people. That, by disease and starvation, and eventually by the hands of he and his sons and nephew, they'd all met a sour end. And though I cannot say I sympathize, I can admit that this revelation scares me more than I can even conceive. That bending the conditions of exophagy is something that goes beyond barbaric.

Jupiter had told me, in not so many words, that Neptune knew as well as he that no terms would have been considered that day four years prior if we'd known Saturn (or Crypt, had it been he instead) had survived. We would have taken our chances; we would have defended when they came for revenge. But without the agreement, they would have died hungry and deprived and weak. Their home was not as strategic as the Test Village or Hades' mine – there was no highway nearby, and no Fred to lead the unknowing into a trap. Before we assisted them, split half with them, they were well on their way to exhausting all available resources. _This_ is why they hid Saturn. Their decisions, their measures taken, were not difficult to conceive.

I can tell you that Neptune was not unintelligent, and this may be what troubles me most. I was outsmarted, yet I am not the one who has suffered the greatest loss as a result of this. It was Pauline, and that is unforgivable.

"You'll come with me now," Lizard tells me, requesting more than commanding. He tries to say it casually, though he must know I hear his pulse racing beneath his voice.

I don't make him wait. I nod; a small gesture, one that is insubstantial.

I nervously teeth on my knuckles, a habit, tasting the sand on my skin. Visually toxic, this place. I stare at the back of Lizard's head as I trail behind, following him back to the village. Yes, toxic. Him, too.

_I am twenty-two years old, _I think to myself, folding my arms across my chest, clutching my shoulders. _And already the best part of my life is behind me. _


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note:** I've finally got this chapter typed up! We're nearing the end of this story, so if you have any particular requests, now would be the time to ask. I can't guarantee I'll actually utilize your idea, but, who knows? Perhaps I'll consider your notion. Reviews are, as always, appreciated. Oh – and this chapter is entirely third person, from the point of view of first Jupiter and then Lizard. It kind of skips from the day of Pauline's death to a few months after last chapter. One more thing – about the mentioning of a few new characters (the 'Sisters', though mentioned in an earlier chapter, and Thanatos), yeah, don't expect to see any of them until the sequel. Now, enjoy!

VVVVVVVVVV

Jupiter had forgotten, up until he saw the outsider man, that Pauline wasn't really his granddaughter, never had been. His son's child – up until then, she had _always_ been his son's child. That pretty little white-headed thing.

She was dead now. There was a plot in the graveyard to prove it, though the circumstances seemed almost inconceivable. Not that a child's death was rare – it _wasn't_. Big Mama, the mother of his own children, had miscarried once before. The Sisters, those women who seemed always to be giving birth, occasionally bore still babies. Jupiter remembered, even, the peculiar death of a young boy when he was a child himself. He had seen the boy afterwards, a scene of almost unbelievable carnage, killed by a wild animal. His throat had been shredded and jaw ripped away. Most of his hair and scalp were gone, accompanied by long, bloody furrows in the pale skin of his arms and legs. The shredded clothing in which the boy was dressed were clotted in blood, and the blood was still coming. The rocks, scattered where the boy lay, were stained and streaked as well where the animal, likely a coyote, had worried him in its frenzy. In the final moments before he drifted away completely, his fists and heels banged jerkily against the stiff earth. His name had been Hypnos, ironically the god of sleep, mythologicaly speaking.

Jupiter remembered slowly raising his head – he must have been in shock by then, having never before witnessed one of his own people accosted in such a way – and meeting the bottomless gaze of the boy's brother. Hypnos and his half-brother Thanatos. He guessed Thanatos may very well still be among the living, even now, though whether he'd have sided with Neptune or Hades following the split of families he had no recollection.

However, no child had ever been killed, within the realms of his memory, by gunshot wound. To do so, to perpetrate such an act, would be an immediate death sentence – in Neptune's case no worry need be shed any longer.

Outside Netta's presence, Jupiter often overheard Ruby and Goggle refer to Pauline, after death, as Angel Baby. A grim sentiment, though not inaccurate. She'd appeared curiously lit up, curiously ethereal in death. That pretty little white-headed thing.

_Angel Baby._

It wasn't a sight he expected, or welcomed – his eldest son cradling the dead girl-child, his mate unconscious, her head propped up on his knee. Netta's eyelids had weighed heavily, a large, greenish bruise forming on her temple beneath translucent skin. He wasn't sure who had knocked her out cold, who had mustered the strength to render her thoughtless with one blow, but he was oddly grateful not to have to bear the sound of a screaming, hysterical mother. He could barely maintain his composure as it was.

When the matter of returning the unconscious Netta to the Test Village was brought up, Lizard refused to allow anyone but he take her, even if it meant leaving Pauline's side. She was alive, Pauline was dead. Though there was no longer any threat posed or danger to be had, he wanted to make sure those who were alive remained alive. Jupiter watched as Lizard gently, gently eased Netta's head to the ground, got to his feet, and handed Pauline to his father. Without making eye contact, Lizard turned away, lifting Netta in his arms, and headed for the car still parked behind the peak. Jupiter continued to watch as he went, unhampered by the child in his own arms, weightless as she was.

Until then, he hadn't even thought to wonder where the man, Marcus, had gone.

As it turned out, he hadn't gone anywhere. Marcus had survived whatever showdown there had been between he and Mercury, who fled upon realizing his father and brother were dead, resulting in his being shot at long distance by Cyst. Marcus had remained, still panting, unbelieving, sitting on the ground outside his useless car, not sure _who_ these people were, _where_ they were taking Netta, or _how_ all of this had happened. He watched the retreating figure of the man with the cleft lip, his ex-girlfriend in his arms, before directing his attention elsewhere, towards the older man standing before him.

His dead daughter lay draped in the man's arms, wilted, her countenance alight in a blast of sun. The organdy pinafore in which, he assumed, Netta had dressed her that morning blew gently in the Flatland breeze.

Pauline, his daughter, was dead. He felt indescribably helpless to the fact that he had not been able to ask her what her favorite color was, her favorite food, whether Netta sang her lullabies. Pounding his head repeatedly and painfully into the car behind him, he mourned more that he hadn't known her than that she was dead.

How could he return now, to the real world, and report to Mrs. Atwood that he had located both her daughter and her granddaughter, only to lose one and witness the death of the other? How could he have allowed it to happen?

The increasing violence of his head thumping against the car door prompted Jupiter to turn, vaguely alarmed, and stare down at the younger man – Pauline's father. Aware of the scrutiny, Marcus as well stared up at the seemingly innocuous man, however wild he appeared to be. Wishing for an honest reply, Marcus threw his head back, squinting through the desert-clear air at the hard blue sky, and asked, "You knew Pauline, didn't you? You knew both of them?"

Not sure how to respond, Jupiter nodded slowly, clasping Pauline tightly to his chest.

"And Netta – she was a good mother, wasn't she?"

Again, Jupiter nodded.

Marcus shut his eyes, wishing Netta knew exactly how grateful he was for that simple affirmation, that it meant something to him that she could take care of their daughter when he couldn't. "I always thought she would be," he said, ever softly, to himself. Slowly, he got to his feet, reaching in through the open car window and taking from the backseat a half-empty bottle of water. Extracting the child from the older man's arms, he sat back down and set to work on cleaning what surprisingly little blood there was dried on Pauline's neck and arms. It occurred to him how tragic this simple gesture was, that this was as close as he'd ever get to his daughter. He smiled, his love for the little girl and her mother as fierce and platonic as it would ever be. _How Shakespearian,_ he thought to himself. _Now you got the look. Now you'll be a father, for the rest of your life, but without the belief you've maintained these past few years, that somewhere out there your child and her mother are alive. You are who you're going to be, for as long as you fucking live._ He laughed bitterly, the white-hot heat of the land casting the afternoon light up into Pauline's darkened eyes, the rose-brick dust of the earth all but set deep into her skin. _Now you got the fucking look._

It was then that Jupiter remembered what he had meant to do that morning, as he and The Family drove out to the peak.

Marcus had to die, now more than ever.

No witnesses. No regrets.

Slowly, moderately, without the man sitting before him noticing, Jupiter raised his semiautomatic, prior hidden beneath his coat. Cautiously, he steadied his gun hand with its empty counterpart. His father had taught he and Cyst how to shoot, with both hands, just as he had taught Lizard and Pluto and Goggle. Just as he'd teach Capricorn if he made it out of boyhood, as sickly as he often was.

Angrily, Jupiter realized that he _liked_ this man, that he respected him, working single-mindedly on fixing up his little girl, who he'd never known, for a woman who, given the choice, would not have opted to return with him back to the other world outside the desert. Angrier still, he realized that he didn't _want_ to kill him, that Neptune and Pauline and Netta and Goggle had all gotten him into this mess, Lizard especially, requesting at the very beginning, four years ago, "We don' have to kill her. We _keep_ her. Woman'll stay."

He had been a good father, all these years, hadn't he? His children loved and respected him, didn't they? Even his unofficial daughter-in-law had grown to look up to him as a figure of omnipotence, a fatherly benevolence. So why did he deserve this- this title of executioner for a man he neither disliked nor wished any ill will toward or for or against?

Why _the_ _fuck– _

It didn't matter. Angel Baby's pinafore, now soaked, washed of its look of rust, lent her the appearance of deep sleep rather than death. He imagined the child nearly fifty years ago, Hypnos – _god of sleep_ – as responsible for the imposed slumber. Sleep and his half brother death; both enveloping her, consuming her entirely, bickering away over the remains.

Jupiter pulled the trigger, thinking _no regrets_ as he did so.

The gun replied with minimal kickback or protest, though it gave him a long hard look that stated clearly, _After everything, was that really necessary?_

Holstering the gun, Jupiter thought, _'Course it was._

The firearm shook its heavy head scoldingly, though it was aware Jupiter wasn't listening any longer, and said, _Give a kid a fucking chance_.

Pauline in tow, Jupiter drove his way through the aseptic Flatlands, later the Regs and Hamada deserts which surrounded Hades' village. He had no way of announcing his arrival beforehand – the already unreliable line of communication between the Test Village and Hades' people had been entirely severed during the electrical storm, days before, when Fred first told him of the two men searching for Netta. He had a question in mind, and he drove now for the only man who could possibly know the answer.

It was pure dumb luck that Jupiter found Hades in the only other accessible mine outside the one nearing his own home. It served as a watchtower for the younger man's clan, an outpost outside their village, a more extensive and labyrinthine network of underground tunnels beneath the earth and stone. Hades, Jupiter's larger yet less aged relation, met him as he slammed the car door shut, a severe and unintentionally calculating expression to counter Hades' own puzzled frown.

"What you doin' here, Jupe?" he asked, chuckling.

Jupiter reflected no such humor, not bothering with any kind of greeting before he posed the question. "D'you remember Hypnos?" he asked. "The boy who got mauled by an animal when we was chil'ren?"

Hades shook his head, understandably. He was several years younger than Jupiter, and may not have been old enough to have even been told of the event at its happening.

"How 'bout his brother?" Jupiter continued. "Did ya' ever know Thanatos?"

At this, Hades' grin personified a hint of recognition. "Yeah. What about him?"

"I need to know what 'appened to him after families split. He alive?"

Hades nodded, still confused. "Wanders in and out of town, but he live way far east. 'E drifts. Got a couple of kids, too."

Surprised by this bank of knowledge, Jupiter nodded, turning to leave. Hades, troubled by Jupiter's oddly brittle temperament, asked, "Jupe, something happen?"

His hand on the car door's handle, he paused. "_Fuck_," he barked, deviating from his straight course to face Hades once more, hand withdrawn. Upon turning, he noticed Chameleon loping out through the entrance of the mine, nodding in surprised acknowledgement as he spotted Jupiter. "Yeah," he said. "Somethin' happen."

Leaning back against the car door, he felt oddly prepared for his decided forthcoming as he stood poised to spill it all. Grimly, he began, "Let me tell you 'bout it."

And so news came swiftly to Hades' clan.

VVVVVVVVVV 

Lizard returned to the mine many times, simply to be near the gravesite. Netta didn't, she absolutely refused to, and he could not, for the life of him, understand it. She did odd things, as if to compensate. He would watch as she wrote through pages and pages of peach-colored paper, stringing missing words together in the hopes of forming a coherent excuse for not keeping Pauline safe, for somehow causing her death. Not that she wanted to free herself from blame – she didn't. She wanted to pay, _dearly_. She focused on the regret, willed it into something tangible, grasping it, kneading it, smashing it against the wall. She sobbed, scribbling, her face grey and blotchy – _weakness, coward, healing, guts_ – and when she let it be, the explanation wasn't even close to finished. It would never be finished.

There were long stretches of time when she went without eating. She'd wait until beyond the point of lightheadedness, of sharp, growling pain and fatigue. She'd sleep through nights and days, without energy, and he knew she preferred the not thinking. When awake, she appeared queasy, her legs heavy as lead, almost expecting her to keel over and throw up, if only she'd anything in her stomach. She'd wait until beyond the quivering and trembling, unable to pick up a pencil or anything at all without dropping it, until it had all subsided into a faint, dull ache that ashened her skin. As if she had been in the mine and lain by the grave, though he knew she hadn't. And just when he thought she'd really starve herself to death this time, Ruby would whisper something into her ear, and she'd nod her head and agree to eat. Sometimes, if she ingested anything more than a glass of water, she'd double over and gag. Her appetite diminished to birdlike proportions.

She told him, once, that during the world war that preambled the one that led to The Family's deformation, battlefield nurses gave cups of tea to the wounded, and it leaked through their bullet holes and killed them. The thought of Pauline made her sick with imagery.

There were days that were better, after a time. Days she could manage normality. But he never knew what exactly would tip the scale – a pearl that is not round, but of unpredictable or elaborate shape.

Chameleon, Letch, Owl – they tipped the scale. After the death, Hades and his people had come, as was custom, to pay their respect. Netta had taken one look at the son and nephew, the way they were built, and recoiled, withdrew throughout their entire stay. When Lizard realized why, he could at least understand that. Like Mercury and Saturn, Chameleon and Letch were muscled and stocky. Not tall; built more in the chest than the legs. Their wild, precarious grins were less mocking but still somewhat leering, forward falling. Owl simply struck too close to home, making her jaw clench, responses forced. She wasn't bitter, wasn't envious – simply wretched, lachrymose.

He _knew_ that she often thought about Pauline at night, in the darkness – a time when dead things come back to say hello, and ask you how you are.

One night stood out among the rest, throughout the months that seethed and bubbled and coalesced indistinguishably into one another. In her sleep, her hands writhed and tangled, wrenching and twisting the fabric of her shirt. Lizard grabbed her shoulders, steadying her, attempting to shake her awake. Her eyes swung open, and her hands fluttered upwards, grasping her own throat. She arched her back, bucking, trying to push him away.

"I see it, _here!_" she choked out, at a loss for breath. "My gravestone – _in my chest! _I can't get it out!" Her eyes stared past him, unseeing. Swallowing hard, she tore away at the space between her breasts, leaving angry red welts in the wake of her fingernails. In her face was the glowing extremity of life on the edge of itself.

Before he could retrain her, her hand flew out and smashed the glass of the window. It wasn't until Ruby ran in, alerted by the noise, that he noticed how the blood from her fingers and knuckles stained the walls and sheets. He sat with her back to his chest, holding her arms in place, folded behind her, one leg thrown over hers as her thrashing dwindled. Her breathing was harsh and her chest heaved.

When asked, he said, "Don' know what happen," and shook his head, brushing glass off his shoulder. As Big Mama bound her hand with gauze, tweezing glass shards out of her knuckles, the glazed look in her eyes were buried by confusion. She didn't remember any of it.

Beneath his steady gaze she shivered, fingering the bandages.

Yes, there were things she did that made no sense to him. Fleeing, most of all.

This troubled him most. Her running away, the things that happened because of it. He had come to recognize the symptoms of this flight condition, the shaky way she conducted herself. How she took off, aimless, testing her boundaries, no more Pauline to tether her to The Family. There had always been the suspicion she'd try to run away, though it seemed unfounded, for as long as she'd been present, but until then she'd never tried to _really_ leave the desert.

He knew when she would try, just as he'd known what nights she was in need of watching-over. Unknown to her, he'd always been highly aware of the things she needed to sustain herself. In later years, he would think that maybe if she had known this they wouldn't have grown apart from one another. Wouldn't have estranged themselves. He was far more human than she or anyone else suspected.

Always a light sleeper, it was not her movement but her absence that woke him. The sheets lay cold beside him, though it's likely they would be cool even if she'd rested beneath them. There was night and depth, and this only, reflecting eerily by the crib that still stood useless in a corner of the room. It had been months since its presence had provided any comfort, any reminder of what once-was. He stood up, pulling himself together quickly, leaving the spike strip in the room. He'd almost taken it with him before remembering he was the only danger that remained in the desert any longer. If he hadn't known she was trying to run, he'd not have gone at all.

He didn't have to check – he knew she must have the keys to the dead kid's (_Dylan?_) truck. It'd been abandoned in a crater long ago, after he decided he couldn't be bothered to look after it anymore. Of all the events of _that day_, it was the thudding in the cargo bed throughout the car ride, Pauline's little fingers on the knobs and dials of the walkie-talkie, which stood out with the most clarity.

"Oh, _big, fat!_" he used to say. "_Big, fat, and juicy!_" Pauline would squeal and run, and he would pursue. It was a game she never grew tired of, sure to tucker her out at least enough so Netta could put her to bed relatively early.

It wasn't until he reached the hills that there was any trace of her. Farther down the rock shelf – loose sediment giving way beneath the scraping of feet, gravel tumbling and skittering. She slid slightly – he could hear that in her steps – and climbed down to even ground again. He quickened his pace, tracking her, his thoughts of singular and frightening mindset.

Pausing on a ledge, he stared downward, transfixed. Netta had stopped walking, the jagged shape in her pocket ceased jangling – car keys. He observed her face, her profile. Pauline had been pretty, so pretty, just like her mother. It was startling, those similarities. He hardly noticed when she turned and, even at the distance between them, stared him directly in the face.

He reckoned once you realize someone's watching you it's pretty hard not to find yourself watching them back.

It wasn't until she ran that he moved forward again. He jumped the twelve-foot drop to the ground, the jolt of the impact shooting up his legs. A less agile man might have stumbled, but he was dead set on reaching her, and scarcely gave the ache a second thought.

There was a definite sibilance in the hurried agitation of her feet, the sound steadily nearing.

_Why did she run?_

He took no pleasure in this chase. Displeasing as cobweb filament, and he was irately and lugubriously enraged. From her ghostly perch in the midst of this rancorous coma-white hinterland she had spun-off into feet that ran and fingers that wished never to touch him.

It was her pulse and not his that sounded in his temple as he grabbed her by the waist. She struggled, unraveled, and, losing her balance, dropped. She clambered for earth to sink her nails into, to claw and crawl away. Her bandaged hand folded at an injured angle beneath her; she scrambled with the other, biting down hard and not accepting that he could not _would not_ let her get away.

To no avail. He was indomitable – unconquerably so. He took hold of her knees, pulling her to him, a severance through the unsettled dust that flew up amid their grappling. Crop circles formed in the lesions created in her skin by his fingernail's crude mannerisms. There was a hyper-present sweeping insensitivity that might have blown their forms like sand across the desert, had only there been less evident a still life so profound towering above their struggle.

With a growl of impatience, he wrought his fingertips deep into the nerve bed of the backs of her knees, shipping a phantasmal chill electrifyingly throughout her leg. She curled inward, pulling the hem of the fifties' housedress over her knees, and screamed, "_I want to leave!_"

He released her; her pulsating breath gave a pounding like that of a metronome absent of time or punctuation. Her resistance hummed, a mechanical engine or tick, thick enough to freight a sprawling tremor up and within his spindly arms.

"_What_ you say?" he asked, a low, guttural, menacing sound, surly and gruff.

She rolled onto her back, but made no attempt to get back on her feet and resume the chase, so defeated the fall had made her iron will. Yes, _that_, her last defense against all those creatures that bump and grind in the night. He watched as the devil flew out of her eyes, the shards of glass that stood on end and liquefied and trickled down her jowls and spine. A peculiar sensation – to watch these things.

_Men with the eyes of beasts,_ she told herself. _Feral and strange – their eyes, knowing, algebraic, formulas riddling inside their heads._

And there it was again! That inherent distrust of every other organic material flitting uncertainly across his face. Situated within, or belonging solely to, the organ or flat panes on which it acted. Used of certain nerves and muscles – of or relating to the essential nature of a thing.

"I want to leave," she stubbornly repeated, if not in a voice which was softer, lilting, afraid.

"Don' you know," he growled, his voice rasping a bit, the harshness of his words exonerated. He crouched onto all fours, and lowered himself above her, not quite touching. She could see the strain in his arms and elbows. "Don' you know," he repeated, "that you not _ever_ goin' to leave? Not unless I kill you."

"There are other ways to die than by your hand," she told him, lifting her chin defiantly. His hand shot out and cupped her face, running a nail across the smooth skin of her cheek, a teasing and a warning all at once.

She saw, then, that he had bred her into his plebeian world of Darwinism, survival of the fittest and all that. No, there would be no escape for her, not from this place. She would remain until the desert itself took her.

"I only meant well," she whispered, gasping it, his teeth knocking against her throat.

His own tone softened. "'Course you did," he agreed, nodding, his forehead up and down into her collarbone. No anger now, no more of that. His face was fierce and angular, episodically brushing up against her own. The dress, pushed above her navel, swooning as a parabola, exposed her stomach and legs. He laid a hand where the baby had once been, could remember doing this many times while she was pregnant. Only flatness, unexpected coolness – he cursed his mistake. Of course, the baby was dead; she'd been born, she had lived, and then she had died – the cradle to the grave.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said, voice tremulous. "I thought – I thought I was helping her."

_What did she say?_ He nodded, nevertheless. He thought she spoke of this botched escape, but it was the running to Marcus she referred to. She _had_ meant well. She _had_ thought she and Pauline would be better for it. That it was all for the best. It had been months, and still no ease came with this acceptance.

"I would never, _ever_ have done it," she said, now really shivering, frightened, penitent. "Not if I thought she would, she would–" She flinched back from his half-jointed driving gloves on her skin, leather shorn at the knuckles, leaking threads down her abdomen. He ground into her, insisting, "Could have 'nother baby – _could_. Nobody on the outside'd come for her this time. 'D be ours."

Abruptly, with startling and unforeseen velocity, she pushed him from her, knocking him backwards. She straightened herself out, rearranging her dress, brushing sand out of the contrived folds of the material. She turned to him, livid, and spat, "_Fuck_ you."

He supposed he hated her most for her lack of judgment.

An instant, an almost imperceptible space of time, of white-hot fury overcame him. He was so damn quick as to be virtually unseen. He took her by the shoulders and _threw_ her against the rock shelf, silt and glacier meal coming loose and pelting downward as hail above her. There was an insurmountable moment of complete and utter frightened immobility. She forgot where she was, who Lizard was, and struggled, writhing and squirming against his grip. He had become unrecognizable, her association between he and Preach and Crypt indistinguishable. Colliding with the rock shelf had her revisiting, almost visually, Preach forcing her into the freezer room, the axe in his skull; Crypt knocking her to the ground, her breath leaving her, his fingers on her throat.

She could see him, not quite tangible: Neptune was there, standing with them, as suddenly and noxiously as a disease!

She almost screamed.

Lizard had the sudden and not entirely unwelcome compulsion to bash her head against the rock – to watch the back of her skull transform into blood and bone and bits of grey matter, her eyes squeezed shut, her teeth grinding so firmly together they _popped_ with the strain. For the first time in years, he wanted to kill her.

He didn't. He breathed heavily, snarling, and growled dangerously low, "You not leaving. You not dying. You stay put, 'less I say different."

She stared blankly, no longer afraid, and asked, "What makes you think I could leave?"

He thought, _'Course she can't. No one ever leaves the desert – no one ever will._

For the first time since Pauline died, she realized everything was going to be okay. She loved him – how could she ever extricate herself from Lizard, The Family, the desert? It wasn't perfect anymore, not without Pauline, but it was going to be okay. She considered trying to conceive that baby he had spoken of, _their_ baby, when they got home.

He thought differently; he _knew_ they were fucked. He couldn't quite shake the feeling of wanting to smash her to bits, kill her – he realized how very alike he and Neptune were.

And he remembered:

He had abhorred Preach, right to the very core, right to the rippling sinews and snapping bone and twitching lungs. However, he was not pleased when Netta rather unceremoniously split the fucker's cranium in two. Not only because there were consequences that had to be dealt with, the kind of consequences that had him questioning how to react to death for the very first time. But because he understood how it felt, that body-wracking lust, that jaw knocking _need_. Preach, Neptune, Mercury – they'd always been that much more susceptible to giving in to that needling voice that began as a murmur, and always, _always_ wound up screaming orders, demanding action. An instinct of some kind – an omnipotent one. Netta had never, never realized the kind of danger she'd been in when she first arrived at the Test Village, those first few days especially. Constantly, a roaring barrage of obscenities had demanded things of him that Jupiter's near calm, near civil manner had succeeded in subduing throughout most of Lizard's life.

_Filthy bitch! Vile outsider! Fuck her! Kill her! Tear her heart out through her throat!_

Her being pregnant – that had saved her more than once. First, at her capture, not just because they'd have killed her, but also because he'd been instantly drawn to her – her vague attractiveness, her roguish near violent features. She possessed something most outsider women lacked; that realness, that nasty bloody inhumanity that manifested itself in fear and lust and survival and horror show type beastliness. Even pregnant, even vulnerable, he could tell He had no doubt, nor any qualms with admitting it; he'd have given in to that sexually frustrated voice had she not been pregnant.

But – she was. And, like Ruby and Pluto, he had a childlike desire to see the baby, to watch the birth and not have to think about the deformity it would most certainly possess if it had been one of theirs. The carnal instinct dissipated, and he and The Family accepted her. Then, after Pauline was born, after he was satisfied Netta was clever enough to know not to run (if she had even wanted to, at that point), more or less begging him to give chase, the voice, that strange instinct which rendered all hope of living among normal beings impossible, even despite their physical deformities, returned. It _asked_ him, in the extreme sense of the word, to ruin her, to crush her, beat her, fuck her 'til her pelvis snapped in two, her backbone shattered, her spinal fluid spilled. He was not, by any means, a large man, not like Pluto or Hades, but he could do it. He could _absolutely_ destroy her, no matter how fervently he resolved not to. After all, he was rather fond of her, in his own way. She was surprisingly funny, sharply intelligent, extraordinarily articulate – a quality he envied. She was nothing like them, The Family, yet infinitely identical.

He did not want to, but he was tempted to do away with her in as animalistic a way as could be conjured in the throes of, he thought, the inevitable event.

As it happened, she had other ideas. He never would have expected it – that she had taken such seemingly inconsequential events to heart; physical contact, his not so late night visits to his own bedroom. He hadn't meant anything by it. If you wanted to feel the baby kick, you got down on your knees and you _felt_. If you wanted to know why she was burning lines into a block of wood with a magnifying glass, of all things, you _questioned_. And if you didn't want your clueless houseguest (of sorts) to wander too far out into the desert and be attacked by uncharacteristically yet infallibly feral coyotes, you dragged your ass up and you retrieved her.

You _did not_ just sit and wait. You _did not_ let events play out in the manner that they would have without interference, as this would, more likely than not, result in someone getting killed. You kept your eyes open and teeth bared and gun at your side. You _did not_ stop thinking and accusing and killing.

You didn't do it for your own health, that was for _god_damned sure.

And unexpectedly, unbelievably, when Netta, _Netta_, took your hand and dragged you and near tore your arm off, then went as far as to drop her own clothes _for_ you, you sure as hell did not hesitate. You ignored how very rattled and disjointed this made you, how very surprised. _And you acted_.

Her outlandish and mutual lust was almost innocently sincere, in some respect – though he reasoned morbidly grotesque as well.

He recalled it differently than she. There was the lullaby, yes. Paradoxical, he had thought, to what they took part in. Entirely separate from his very nature. He remembered laughing in spite of himself, how she arched her back and smiled deviously. Her big embarrassed grin, her hands, crushed by his, on either side of her head. To half hover above her. To sink himself into some dark, tight place. To lack the understanding, to not know why she would allow it. And afterwards, she had slept peacefully within the arms of her nightmare; he, the callous monster.

In a sense, she saved herself, and subsequently her child died. If Lizard had killed Netta, there'd have been so much vacancy throughout the past several years. Too much. He knew Ruby would never have forgiven him, and Jupiter would have been beyond furious. Most likely, he'd have gone on to be uninhibited, to be like Mercury and Neptune. It would have been disastrous. And yet, if he had killed her (instead of _fucking_ her), Pauline would still be alive, wouldn't she? He had been her father, her _real_ father. Pauline, like Netta, had this calming effect on him. With them around, the compulsory instinct had virtually disappeared. Only after Saturn and Crypt's attack, and the time before Neptune, Mercury, and Preach materialized, did the 'voice' return to tell him, _Don't let anyone harm them – ever again_.

But now, Pauline was dead, and he couldn't touch Netta without hurting her. The indiscriminate, ever present rage had burrowed underneath his skin, and it stole away any mildness, any tenderness he was capable of. There was nothing he could do to appease the violent, roaring utterance that was ceaseless, day in and day out.

_Fuck her, kill her, beat her!_

_Harder!_

_Faster!_

_Deeper!_

In time, he'd go absolutely brainsick. That was inevitable. And if he harmed her, _killed her_, even – what then? He remembered when she said she loved him. The word had been meaningless. He couldn't remember ever hearing it beforehand, not from The Family. Of course he knew its definition, its implications, but it was an obsolete expression. Yes, a sound, a combination of sounds, that symbolized and communicated no meaning.

But he understood it somewhat, to a purely atavistic and pragmatic degree, and if he'd cared for anyone, he had cared deeply for Netta. He remembered, vaguely, a palpable affection for his younger siblings; Goggle and Ruby, the twins. Not Pluto so much, for he could take care of himself, and Lizard need have no responsibility of guardianship. His father, once, at least out of respect. Yet for Netta, for Pauline, it had been constant.

He missed Pauline in a way that was stifling, and he would miss Netta once she was gone, too. He realized she would be safer if he allowed her to leave – but no. She was _his_. If she were going to be rescued, it would have to be by someone other than he.

And then – something happened that saved her, again.

The Carter family.

Had she misread Lizard? Had she really misunderstood _everything_?

Yes, she most certainly had.


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note:** Hey, all. Thanks for being patient with me; I know I'm awful about deadlines. Anyway, chapter twenty-three will be split into two sections, part one of which is this. Next chapter will be part two, of course, and afterwards there are only a couple or so chapters left until the end. If you're a fan of Ruby, I'm sure you'll like this installment. Finally, if you don't remember the soon-to-be-mentioned tarnished locket, or Netta's father's funeral (referred to in this chapter only briefly), reread chapter five and nineteen. Enjoy, and leave a review on your way out.

**-----**

It hadn't been Ruby's idea, not really, to lead Netta on a hunt for the tarnished silver locket. But nevertheless, they were out there now, by the stream of flat-faced, sleepy-eyed fish, where Netta claimed to have buried it four years hence. Beyond the feather-bobbed blackness of her own wayward bangs, the fluttery material of Netta's shirt and the pale-tea glow of her skin, Ruby watched dry mountains burn.

An unrelenting smile adorned her tilted face as her gaze drifted back towards Netta's clothing. She had picked out the outfit herself, after leaping atop Netta's sleeping form that morning and shocking her awake. Groaning amid the earl grey chalk of dusk, Netta had offered, "Why don't you choose an outfit for me, Ruby? I need another minute of shut-eye, then I'll be up."

Delighted with the task, she had run off in pursuit of something really spectacular, not noticing that Lizard was missing. In fact, she was sure she knew why. The previous night, acutely aware of something off about the still of the Test Village, she had woken up and stepped out onto the porch, taking a teary and fitful Aries with her. Cradling her pretty-ugly sister on her lap, she had seen Lizard and Netta wander into the Village from the teetering brinks of desert. They both appeared awfully, awfully tired, and, realizing they'd been spotted, approached the porch. Netta was the first to speak, asking mid-yawn, "Why're you two up so late, sweetheart?"

Having meant to ask the same thing, Ruby shrugged and said, "Aries cry. Couldn't sleep, neither of us." As if in affirmation, Aries cuddled up nearer to Ruby and shivered meaningfully.

Crouching down, Netta half-whispered, "Let me take you to bed, Aries. I could sing you something if you like."

Aries nodded savagely, declaring, "Angel Baby wanna hear song, too, Lil' Ma." Both of her elder siblings cringed, not expecting the request and subconsciously fearing Netta's reaction.

"Who's Angel Baby?" Netta asked, confused. She looked up at both Lizard and Ruby. "One of her dolls?"

Silence, then Lizard slowly shook his head. "No. Angel Baby ain't no doll."

"Oh," Netta said. "It's Pauline, isn't it? A name she made up for her?" She smiled faintly, taxing it out with her tongue. "_Angel Baby_."

Aries nodded. Instead of remaining silent, as both Lizard and Ruby expected, Netta gathered Aries in her arms and responded kindly, in a softly sage-like voice, "You had better come to terms with this, child. Pauline doesn't want anything. Neither does she dislike anything. She is dead and beyond thinking about you or me or anybody else." She paused, tucking a stray hair behind Aries' ear, tapping her nose. "Alright, honey?"

Satisfied and smiling understandingly, as if righted or vindicated, Aries nodded again. "Okay," Netta chirped, departing into the house. "Lets sleep."

Before Ruby followed her indoors, she and Lizard exchanged an esoteric glance, knowing fully what the other was thinking. _'S good she said that,_ they thought in unison. _Means she's getting better._

Grinning wryly, albeit wearily, Lizard leaned forward and ruffled Ruby's hair. "Go on," he commanded. "_Bed._ 'Fore Mama hears you up." Giggling and revealing a mouthful of small, disorderly teeth, Ruby obeyed and scampered indoors, Lizard bringing up the rear. She was met by the tumultuous sight of Aries and Capricorn both, the latter having just woken to the seedy sagebrush racket of hushed voices on the porch, tumbling atop one another and into bed as Netta sang the besoughted lullaby. "_My bonnie lies over the ocean,_" she sang. "_My bonnie lies over the sea…_"

"What's a ocean?" Capricorn asked, his char-ashened face of slightly dour saintliness. Netta ceased singing, replacing the "o" of her lips with an unharnessed smile, and thought. She thought of her mother's waterside home, a place she wished sincerely never to return to, a place where she had told herself as a child of ten, amid a gaggle of funeral-goers, that she had never asked for and never wanted anyone to rely on her for love. She thought of the garden, impeccably tended to by her stepsister, who had always had more in common with Netta's mother than she herself did. The backyard, thick and white with sea fog. It might have been an assembly of spirits, that teakettle condensation: her father and Pauline and Marcus. As Netta beckoned Ruby and Lizard to join them, sitting Indian-style on the bed, she had in mind the dead as well as the living.

"It's a whole lot of water," she answered finally, as Ruby sat down beside her. "Only salty. Salty enough to float."

Lizard alternately listened to Netta speak of the outside world and ignored Ruby's pleading look, begging him to sit with them. Crossing his arms and leaning back against the rot of stucco walls, Netta's voice infiltrated his mind, speaking of skeletal skyscraping monsters congregating on mile long concrete roads; a million, billion people, none of whom knew each other's names; single cities the size of a thousand Test Villages. He shook his head, believing most of what she said to be bullshit, a children's bedtime story, and laughed silently to himself. The thought of _this_ Netta, slipping a pillow beneath Capricorn's half-awake features, differed so greatly from the Netta he knew personally and singularly, after the lights went out and the children were put to bed, that he couldn't help but be amused. _That_ was a side of Netta he would keep to himself; the wide-awake eyes, the devious grin, the burnt shoulders and shivery, child-white skin. The story-telling motherly part of her his siblings could have. They needed it more than he did, or ever had, or ever would.

As of right then, the metaphorical voice in his head, the tone and pitch that personified the more instinctual part of him, lost out for at least the rest of the night, and he wanted her over and over again.

It wasn't until later, almost sunup, when Ruby resurfaced vaguely from sleep, that she knew Netta and Lizard had retreated back to their room. She _knew_ what they were doing, the thing Papa Jupiter and Big Mama must have had to do at least five times to have so many children. So, even though the idea that struck her then exited her immensely, she would wait until daybreak before she acted on it.

And she did wait, until there was all but searing coma-white sky, too hot to think, a machine gun in a violin case. The vapor-thin layer of foreboding, thunder-nigh pre-clouds magnified the pale sun's heat to scarcely fathomable and scarcely bearable heights, humid-heavy and stupid-thick, the kind of hot, _hot_ heat that explodes into rainclouds and flashfloods. A deep, piccolo varnish garnered the red sand of the desert, and Ruby felt, blinking and standing before the steps to Netta's door, that she must be so unimposing amid the milk-jade sea that cradled her.

Before she woke Netta, she made sure to fetch the copper cloisonné tin from it's hiding place, overflowing with trinkets and pendants filched from Outsider's suitcases. She left it dormant by Netta's pillow as, still fueled by purpose, she bounded off to locate an outfit. And now that she'd returned – the pleated hem of a paisley shirtdress draped over the crook of her elbow, so coquettishly outlandish Ruby imagined Netta would look like a typical Outsider wearing it – Netta stared down at the biscuit tin of jewelry.

"What's this for?" she asked, not looking up. Ruby could see the hatred burning hot and pink in those eyes, directed at the people in the cities, the people outside the desert. It scared and fascinated her. Was it possible Netta could see the same thing in Ruby's eyes? Did _she_ have that much hate in her? Since Pauline's death, Netta seemed estimable only in degrees of heat. She simmered like a tea bag, hissed like a furnace, withered like a crushed cigarette. Staring down at the biscuit tin, she was goddamn arson, consuming and spitting, half-crazy with hate. Her face was blazing.

Ruby again glanced at the Outsider's things, the pins and necklaces. A kind of chill went through her. Did _she_ hate the Outsiders, like Lizard and Papa and now Netta, too? She stared out at the porch, the baby's breath hanging in baskets from the cross beam and the two rocking chairs with their hand-sewn cushions. Netta's teeth flashed sunlight into her eyes.

"Gonna give Pauline present," Ruby explained, and Netta nodded.

"Okay," she said. "That sounds good." Afterwards, she had dressed in what Ruby brought her, and they both headed out for the mine. They traipsed slowly, their hips and fingers occasionally brushing up against one another as Ruby peered up at Netta's face, stoic and no longer on fire, fully expecting her to bolt. It hadn't occurred to Ruby to wonder why Netta agreed to accompany her to the mine, not until she watched as Netta faltered at the start of the cart tracks, and seemed almost to gasp for breath. She reached out for the rim of the mine trolley to steady herself, drew in a sharp mouthful of air, then ploughed onward. _You shouldn't be afraid of a grave,_ Netta told herself. _There's no reason for it. No reason at all._

Ruby played on as if she hadn't noticed the wane of confidence, offering a tight-slipped smile and taking Netta's forearm. Flashlight in hand, she navigated the tunnel and led Netta through quickly, eager to offer her scavengings to the almost-child Pauline had become. After all, her eyes were much more accustomed to the near obliterating darkness of the mineshaft.

Spotting the grave, Ruby skipped ahead. She set the cloisonné tin by her feet and, kneeling before the cross, trained the circle of light on Netta's face, eyes shining brightly in the glare. The peculiar expression she wore troubled Ruby for only a moment before Netta asked, hesitating, "Ruby? Who put that there?"

She nodded in the direction of what she spoke of, and Ruby turned to see she meant the cross. "Did you build that?" Netta continued, as Ruby draped necklaces, bracelets, scarves at the base and branches of the waist-high structure.

Ruby stared up, squinting, and shook her head. She had simply arrived at the gravesite a few days prior and found the cross erected there, struck into the ground, packed tightly into the earth. "Netta mad?" she asked, and wondered if she would correct her grammar as she had when Pauline stumbled over words.

"No," she replied stagnantly. "Just curious." When Ruby continued to stare, she laughed regalingly (and, Ruby noted, the laughter sounded almost like a choked sob), and furthered in a considerably more jovial tone of voice, "And I'm grateful. I'd like to know who built it."

Nodding, Ruby handed her a string of blue-glass beads. Netta smiled vaguely and hung them over the side of the wooden cross, a plank of housing material bound to another, albeit expertly, and observed how uncommon the newly marked grave appeared among the pickaxes which announced the site of the deceased miners. Drawing her hand back, she scraped her knuckles on a bitterly sharp _something_, and in response yelped in surprise. Startled, Ruby snatched the flashlight off the ground and centered it at the cross.

Synchronously, they realized it had been bound together with barbed wire.

After that, Netta had been eager to leave the mineshaft. Ruby _knew_ that. She sympathized, even, but found herself unwilling to go, almost exasperated with Netta's persistency. She was finally persuaded to leave as well when Netta related to her the story of the tarnished silver locket, a trinket of whose timbre she claimed to be irreplaceable. A trinket of whose uninterrupted existence might lend its sun-warmed damask, perhaps scintillate the mineshaft boneyard into evergreen and angelhair, saltwater dusk. All damascene and twill-weave jacquard. All good things, even six feet below, where the coffin worms go. A present for Pauline; the best bit for Angel Baby.

What it _really_ was could not be touched. What it _really_ wanted was not yet imagined. And, like clockwork, they arrived at the bank of silt and freshwater and brainsick, sleepy-eyed creatures just as the single, white pickup truck materialized on the horizon.

For a brief moment, Ruby thought it must be a military convoy, as it traveled no known road and instead drove cross-country atop the blonde desert sand. _No,_ Ruby realized, scrutinizing the caustic and corroded vehicle which approached oh-so-dauntingly. _Not military_. She guessed correctly. Official, yes, but it was more a scientific venture they happened upon.

Swiveling counter-clockwise at the scraping of Netta's heel in the dirt, presumable marking an "X" where she believed she'd buried the locket, Ruby guessed the older woman hadn't noticed the steadily nearing automotive. She hesitated before tugging on Netta's belt loop, pointing wildly, and uttered a single, self-explanatory word:

"_Incoming._"

It seemed ages before Netta really responded, her initial reaction almost comatose. "Incoming?" she asked dumbly, appraising the pick-up truck with a scrutinous gaze. "As in, coming here?"

Confused, Ruby checked back over her shoulder and, with a decisive nod, confirmed the Outsider's continuing advancement. Facing Netta again, she observed with mild interest the look of arson slipping back into her features; her face blazing, wide, colossal grin half-crazy with hate. Watching, Ruby felt as if a great fire were burning nearby to her, sucking up all the oxygen, making her pant to catch her breath. Netta laced the fingers of her hands together and tilted her head back to stare up at the hard blue sky. "Are they now?" she said, a look of confidence piercing the goo-goo doll pout, her satirical distaste. "Huh."

Ruby asked herself again: _Do I have that much hate in me?_

As quickly as it appeared, the sardonic grin dissipated, and Netta was Netta again. Ruby found herself wishing she could make herself look like that – _dangerous_. Trenchant, perhaps, or biting, scathing, corrosive.

With a more familiar concern, Netta unclipped the walkie-talkie from her waistband and handed it to Ruby, asking, "Shall we radio the others?"

She nodded diligently, receiving the walkie-talkie with three-tiered digits as Netta peered down at the newly arrived triumvirate. She and Ruby both perched atop a red-rocked slope, towering above the stream of mutated fish. While Ruby called in the possible threat to Goggle and Pluto, Netta chose instead to watch the men who parked below, at the base of the stream's gouging trellis. Car doors swung open, and out poured several municipally employed scientists.

She nearly laughed.

Each of the men were donned in elaborate NBC suits, providing, she supposed, government-issued protection inclusively from direct contact with and contamination by radiation. They brandished Geiger counters and steel-handled nets, combing the desert rubble below. She watched as one man skimmed the surface of the shallow water with his net, catching a fish and releasing it onto the dusty bank. It flopped about wildly as he scanned it with a Geiger counter, the device whirring and ticking in response. "High levels of radiation," he called over to another man, before dipping the reinforced netting back into the ford.

Ruby tapped Netta's shoulder and said, "Goggle say he an' Pluto busy with Outsider man."

Netta nodded, as if contemplating the circumstance, and offered, "Try Jupiter and Lizard."

"Did already. He'n Lizard'n Cyst're at Fred's. Can't come."

Crossing her arms and drumming her fingers across the opposite elbow, Netta asked, "Why?"

Ruby shrugged, knowing only that Fred had called them in earlier, requesting that they stop by the Oasis. She didn't know what Fred wanted, and she hadn't thought to wonder or to be concerned about it. She'd assumed it had to do with some preliminary desert occurrence, a man-thing between he and her father and brother she had no business trifling with. She frowned, asking herself if she should have been more curious.

"Okay. Just tell Goggle to send Pluto over when they're done," Netta said distantly, also shrugging, as Ruby followed her instructions. Again, Netta's gaze trapped itself down under, at the clipped, screened, and sterilized men below. "You know what?" she asked suddenly, shaking off her trance-like fixation. "Maybe you should head down to Fred's before Pluto gets here. I'll keep an eye on these three and meet up with you there."

Taken aback, though she agreed she'd rather not be around when Pluto came to kill the strange white-clad men, Ruby asked, blatantly bewildered, "Find locket, still?"

"I'll find it. You just get to the Oasis before you have to see something nasty, alright?" For a moment, Ruby thought to refuse. It wasn't something she did often, or ever, actually, and maybe if Netta had been Papa Jupiter or Lizard she wouldn't have thought to disagree at all. Netta picked up on it quickly, and, casting Ruby a weary glance, she asked, "Do you know what a Siren is? Or a harpy? From Greek mythology?"

Ruby shook her head.

"They're women, part bird, and supposedly gorgeous. And in all the old stories they would sing to sailors going by in ships, and when the men came to shore, the Sirens would kill them." When Ruby frowned, Netta laughed and said, "Morbid, I know," and cast a nearly imperceptible glance at the men below. _Though no more funereal than the pair of us, I suppose,_ she thought to herself. She continued on: "Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing, but from their silence certainly never."

Ruby narrowed her eyes, knitted her brow unmistakably with skepticism, and questioned, "How d'_you_ know?"

"I guessed," Netta responded, chuckling softly. "I guessed it, as it stands to reason that for a story to be told there must be a survivor of it's events to relate it. There are a thousand stories and odysseys of a Siren's voice, but none of their silence. No one has ever survived _that_." Ruby, surprised at the fairly clever rationalization, smiled despite herself, and thought it must be this very same reason for The Family's continuing existence. No one had yet survived to tell the story. And she understood Netta's underlying message: unless she wished to be a Siren herself, she should not be present for the three men's synchronous execution. Before turning and descending the red-crested slope, she offered Netta the walkie-talkie. She shook her head and told Ruby, "No. You take it. I'll be seeing you soon enough." Ruby nodded wordlessly and departed, leaving Netta perched like a vulture atop her stone bound roost, staring down and keeping watch the handful of ill-fated men.

Part bird, part woman. That was what Netta had said a Siren was, wasn't it? Then she, above all else, must constitute a harpy. Or so Ruby told herself, as, approaching the gas station, she spotted Lizard and Cyst seated by the bottle tree and paying resolute attention to a walkie-talkie. Booming from the speakers came both Jupiter and Fred's voice, quarrelling. Hearing what sounded like a faint echo of the argument, she realized she could just barely eavesdrop on the same two voices mounting from inside the Oasis.

And she knew at once what Lizard and Cyst were doing.

Goggle had tried to explain it to her once, though she admitted she'd never entirely understood it. _It_ was a rather effective way of listening in on another's conversation, the same way Ruby's radio sometimes picked up a feed from a distant trucker's CB. She wasn't sure who had figured it out, as none of The Family were ever any good at dealing with electronics of any kind, but she had the vague idea it had been maybe Goggle or Lizard or even one of Hades' sons; Chameleon, perhaps. _It _was to intercept the communication between a user and a host, via purposely picking up the transmission of another radio. In this case, Lizard and Cyst were listening in on Jupiter, who had most likely accidentally switched on his walkie-talkie and unknowingly broadcasted he and Fred's dispute.

Nevertheless, Ruby meandered over to her brother and uncle and asked, "What'cha doing?" Startled, Lizard hurriedly reached over to switch off the walkie-talkie, before Ruby's voice carried over to Jupiter's radio and one or the other, Papa or Fred, realized their argument wasn't quite as private as they had hoped. The silence suddenly penetrating, Lizard glared up at her, rising from the ground, and snapped a discernibly brusque, "_**What?**_"

Ruby shrank back a little, though she nodded over at the stucco building, its walls bellying out like a corpse, and asked, "What happen?"

With a look of distaste, Lizard replied, "Fred don' want to help no more."

Confused, Ruby echoed, "Don' want to help…?"

"With the Outsiders. He don' want to help," he finished disdainfully, glaring over at the gas station as Cyst, in accord, spat violently his affirmation. "Goddamn nance," he growled. Through Ruby's shocked silence, all three could hear the hum and murmur of the boxed-in altercation and the more distant grunting of Fred's piglet, the sibilation of its leash as it strained impatiently, tugging on the rope that tethered it to the fender of a rusted truck.

All at once, the two rumbling voices escalated almost spatially to a crescendo, and Lizard, restless as he was, mumbled, "Fuck it." Ignoring Jupiter's earlier advice to keep out, that he would only suffice to anger Fred further, he made his way to the door and left Cyst and Ruby peering after him.

Ruby took a deep, steady breath, meaning to rid her voice of obvious concern, and asked, "Why Fred change his mind?'

Cyst shrugged. "Had 'is doubts since Pauline die. An' he told Jupe he been wantin' to _save his soul_ while he still got it." His normally pitted voice gave way to rumbling laughter before he continued. "Never figured Fred for a religious man. _Never_. Not in all _my_ years. 'Spose I believe what Big Brain's been sayin' all this time – there ain't no heaven _or_ hell, only dust unto dust." Again, he laughed, pausing only when the distant voices erupted again into jarring, discordant dissonance. "They not gettin' _anywhere_ in there. Just yellin' at each other."

Ruby knew Cyst was right, knew the three contenders who fought so diligently would be of no consequence, _knew_ the argument would behold very little, if anything at all. None of them, not Jupiter or Lizard or Fred, would budge, none would sway their conviction. Ruby threw her head back, something like dread splitting like an atom or an overripe melon in her chest. She shut her eyes and told herself, '_Nothing will be mended. Nothing.'_

Doing so, eyes endlessly shut, thoughts fizzy and swelling with lament, she barely registered the thunderclouds finally giving way into a torrent of breakaway, freak-shower rain. Rocking back on her haunches, sitting still and bereft for minutes upon minutes, she did not see the three figures appear on the horizon, and as such, could not possibly have identified the tell-tale flickering of the sickly sun's blistering, pale-neon reflection strike a solid metal instrument all that distance away, coated with the residuous coagulation of rotten blood.


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note:** So, I've been gone for a while, and now I'm back. I've been bombarded with emails and complaints, and though it probably seems like I haven't been listening, I have – thanks for motivating me, guys! Before you start reading, I altered a few details in Chapter 23, so this one will probably be a smoother read if you go ahead and check that out. Enjoy, and leave a review on your way out – and don't forget to check out the Author's Note at the end of this page!

**-----**

The rains struck suddenly, in scheming, halophilic sheets, coarse and astringent as hard liquor and as welcome as Hell. Farther off, at the foot of the acropolis, laundry-shaped heaps of discarded children's clothing lay weeping about, twitching and rotten with lice; great, large craters of burnt Buicks in the semi-darkness; tricky bajadas, a rugged outcropping of mountainous terrain. On either side of me, children whimpered in the wet, two pairs of eyes staring skyward, as melodic and velveteen as sticky buns.

I didn't see it coming. Thunderheads are indicative of flashfloods, but not without fail. This time, yes.

"Look up," I told Aries, and Capricorn followed her compliant lead. I laughed. "Now close your eyes and stick out your tongue. Think _snow_." I spoke plainly and clearly and austerely. The pickaxe, heavy and heartfelt on my shoulder, grew intolerable, and with no semblance of patience I shifted its weight and rusted sheer-wrought countenance unto the other side. It remained sticky and thoughtful with blood and clung messily to a rag meant to keep it dry, 'else the rain might've had its way with all the present phantom-gore (not that it would shield the lavish for long).

I cannot say exactly why I kept the axe that, wielded by Pluto, did away with those three intruding NBC-donned men and the blood-splashed kid who pleaded with them for help, but I do know that when Pluto offhandedly pressed it into my arms after the deed was done and the scientists had gone scraping down the rocky slope, beaten and bloodied and belly-up, I thought, _I could get used to this. I could come to enjoy it._ He and Goggle gave me a lift back to the Test Village, handful of men chained crudely to the back of the pickup truck (met with no protest but that of my subconscious), and the shaft of the pickaxe stuck to my palms and I couldn't, _wouldn't_, let go. Like Lizard, it came into my life _real_ fast and I liked it.

It was from the Test Village I fetched Aries and Capricorn, playing Lincoln Logs in their room, and we made our way serenely to the gas station, as I told Ruby I would. And it was _then_ that the skies opened up and threw down acid rain without obstruction or elaboration and for the first time in _all_ my time in the desert I knew what it was to be knee-deep in precipitation.

"Close your eyes!" I repeated, half-laughing, and they didn't think twice before they obeyed. They opened their mouths wide and swallowed the deep, long wet of the thunderclouds; and they loved it.

Oh, the _things_ that break your heart. Times like these and I ached palpably for motherhood – female subtleties Aries and Capricorn could not possibly have realized or understood. A crippling estrogen blow to the ribs.

Still, the impromptu desert rain strained our walking to simple, unabashed, near-impossibility, and it was hell in a handbasket trying to reach Fred's Oasis. For some brief, pilfered time we outraced the rain's ensuing mud, even at our oxen pace, but the weather turned and softened and further halted our once-simple journey, and so we traveled then with less speed and comfort even as we climbed into the hills and the land beyond, our destination that vast, lost land north of the Test Village which might be one territory or another but of which none but The Family knew of or if any other did (the Army? Government? Manhattan Project?), none, it seemed, cared.

The corduroy road, ill-made anyway, then began to fall away and disappear into the frost-ooze, the dank black mud beat into the sand by the rain and which sucked at each of our footsteps like horses hooves so that feet pulled out of shoes and there was often no way of knowing what was road and what bog or desert marsh or simply muddied meadow encompassed by drowned and long-dead vegetation, the former homes of Desert Tree Frogs and their contrived tadpole spawn, brought about in times like these – the Wet Season. Which was certainly what this was, the heavy rains a factor provocative enough to ascertain my assumption. The tree-corpses appeared silver and white in the spring light; shorn of their smaller limbs they seemed to me giants of long lost men, struck mute and helpless where they mired. And as we finally passed out of the muck and back into spruce and hemlock desert-tundra the road would subsist again, often no more than a crushed track pressed through the highway's lining. Where the mud had not yet broken through the desert-frost there appeared boulderbacks etched with faint scars, the signs of some other, earlier passage. Reassuring to the children perhaps, Aries and Capricorn following bravely behind the path I paved, but to me nothing 'cept a reminder for vigilance.

And everywhere, over everything, as if boiled out of the mud by the heat, swarmed clouds of gnats and blackflies, no-see-ums, upon the open bogs like silver glistening screens, lit by the sun, prismatic. Over all open skin and in ears and nostrils and eyes and mouths, as if the land was not enough but the air too must join and fight against our traveling.

When finally Fred's Oasis was visible, seemingly conjured out of the horizon, we breathed a collective sigh of relief at the plausibility of not-walking and not-struggling and not-sinking into the sopping rain muck. The grasslands lay in a drunken, deep violet haze and to the west thin flights of waterfowl were moving north before the sunset in the deep red galleries beneath the cloudbanks like schoolfish in a burning sea and on the foreland plain a mirage sprung up of a faux-vaquero's silhouette driving cattle beyond our vision through a gauze of golden dust. Perhaps if this apparition were not simply heat bending light we might soon come across the path of the driven cattle cut through the grass like a place where water had run and by mid-evening see the herd before us moving west and within an hour catch them up.

But heat and light is not tangible substance. A mirage is no more than an optical phenomenon, illusory and insubstantial, known prettily and indifferently as _fata morgana_.

Approaching the gas station, we could see Ruby and Cyst sitting beneath Fred's gabled porch. The rain, dwindling, ran off the slanted roof and dumped itself down in a single, thick, sight-impenetrable sheet. The pickaxe, balancing on my shoulder still, had just then had the rag ripped away from the blade and appeared licked clean, blood-slick just moments before. I tossed it away, and, taking Aries and Capricorn by the hand, walked through the rain's run-off, this final soak as equally unsettling and uncomfortable as before.

Laughing and shivering, I rubbed my shoulders and tipped rainwater out of my shoes, squeezing out my hair. Aries and Capricorn appeared tatterdemalion in the shade, staring up at Cyst and Ruby, the former of whom was chuckling at us, muttering, "The rain'll catch you like that. Always does." Ruby opened her eyes, previously shut and seemingly dozing, and looked surprised to see us.

Behind us, the rain came to a close, now a pitiful, innocuous leaking of the sky. "All gone now, Angelface," I said, resettling Aries's jacket on her miniscule shoulders and tossing my own over Capricorn's bare ones. They both looked utterly, miserably crestfallen, staring up at the spent clouds as if wishing for more. "What'cha still grizzlin' for?"

To Ruby, still sleepily surprised, I said merely, "Tada!" I reached into my pocket, presenting her with a fistful of cotton-lint and the weighty, silver locket. "I told you. Right where I left it, like the sand don't shift at all." I laughed; Ruby sat still, a moment's hesitation before reaching upward, upward, still impassive, unimpressed, not quite there yet, and–

There. Right there. A smile, as pleasantly bemused as children are often wont to be. Teeth and gums and all. Deceptive, as if this world of ours were ever meant to be as such at all. Demonstrating the most gorgeously cruel falsity.

Like flowers in hell.

She grasped the locket, staring, taxing it out with her hands engaged in her lap, turning it over and over as she worked her fingers up and down its sides as if to divine something in those red-blistered digits.

And then the smile collapsed.

"Netta?" she said, staring down at her lap still. I sat down beside her. Aries and Capricorn stepped off Fred's porch and into the muddy brown puddles surrounding, Cyst reaching for the hem of Aries's dress and tugging her back from the run-off. They squealed and avoided his grasp, muddying their pre-tattered clothing. Blissfully unaware.

"I'm here," I said, and Ruby looked up.

"Fred don't want to help no more."

And I felt as my smile collapsed, too.

**-----**

**Author's Note:** This is not the whole chapter! The rest of it will be posted in the next few days. I just have to stop typing so I can work on a film project I need to complete for school. Sorry, guys, but you won't have to wait long at all this time (by the way, if you've been missing Netta's narration, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and don't worry, there will be more before the end of this fic!).


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note:** For this chapter, I started off with Netta's POV, and then moved on to another character none of you have heard from yet. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by who it is (I hope so, anyway). I realize it has been a long, long time since the last update, as this chapter has been scrapped and redone multiple times, but I hope you can find it within yourselves to forgive me and leave a review on your way out! Thanks!

**--**

_Listen:_

I've been thinking. Thinking that I, _myself_ – I'm the oldest thing there is. Older than the Earth, you know? I mean, _not really_. But I am identifiable, easily understood; a Jungian archetype, if you will. Little girl lost, maybe – the oldest trick in the book. But anyway, I've been thinking. Once you're dead, you know everything. Because, what's left to remain unknown anymore? After death, that is.

Nothing. There's nothing left to remain unknown. But what's there to do with all that knowledge? Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing to _be._ In fact, you _cease_ to be.

_Listen:_

I know you're not. Listening, that is. But I'll tell you anyway. When I was fourteen – a freshman in high school, you understand? Four years following my father's death, four years before I came to the desert – I was bored, and I decided to cut class. It was easy, easier than fucking, or murdering, both of which now seem as natural to me as life, or sand. And this girl, she was cutting class, too. In the bathroom. Sitting atop this busted radiator. And she offered me a cigarette – I didn't know her name, but she offered me a smoke, a Pink Elephant, to be exact, and I almost took one because what the hell, it's not like I'd have to worry about what my father would say, or how he'd launch into a story about how my granduncle suffered late into his old age with emphysema. Which, I mean, if you look at it, my father died with clean lungs, but _not_ smoking didn't keep him alive. Nothing keeps you safe, _ever,_ so why bother trying to stay safe, _ever_? Why do anything to stay alive when you could die today?

_Listen:_

I'm not trying to threaten you. What I'm trying to say is, nothing makes any sense. When my father died – the doctors found his cancer too late, you see, and by he time they knew he was too far gone – people kept telling my mother not to think about _what ifs_, that she'd drive herself crazy. But if you can die because of some stupid decision – not getting checkups regularly enough, maybe, or running off when really you should've just stayed put – how can _anything_ be important? Or not important? How can you know if you're making the decision that's going to kill you? Or somebody else?

_Listen:_

My mistake was, I felt an obligation. Four years I lived here, in the desert, and I thought the Outside world had forgotten all about me, but it turned out they just couldn't let me slide that easy. So the Outside world came a-knocking and – here's my mistake – I went a-knocking back. Because I felt as though I was obligated to; obligated to make peace with a good-as-dead man. I'm not dead – that was my other mistake – but _some_body had to die and that somebody happened to be my daughter. You see? Circularity. The most natural thing there is, aside from life, and – _sand_.

Anyway, these things, they repeat themselves like archetypes, and its kind of too Oedipal to remember. Fathers and daughters and death and all these things that I've done or tried to do. I wear my mistakes like an albatross. Never endingly, like … a snake eating its tail. Sick shit like that.

_Listen:_

We forgot about Fred. Forgot all about him. Not _him_, exactly – not the entity that Fred _was_. We forgot that Fred was not inflexible, not constant. He fluctuated and what _we_ wanted was for him to stay put. The beginning of the end – a cliché, or an archetype, or maybe just the truth.

It was Ruby – not Cyst, not Jupiter – who told me of Fred's announcement. And from inside the Oasis, its shadow falling across the ground like the shadow of a boxing ring, Fred's booming, indignant voice thundered despairingly, "I can't carry on like _this_ no longer, Jupe! _No longer!_ My soul – I mean to save it, not have it torn to pieces by the likes of _you!_" And then, dangerously low, he seethed so that I strained to hear, "Maybe if Big Mama'd been fucked right just once, she'd a not birthed these heathen children, _but_ –"

I entered the doorway. Here was Lizard and Jupiter, quick to jump at Fred following his ill-advised comment. Here was I, standing, all three men freezing at my presence, Fred's forehead all broken out in a cold sweat. I sensed a presence behind me, and needed no one to affirm it must be Ruby followed me inside. I stood. I stood I stood I stood.

Both Lizard and Jupiter's hands at his collar, meaning to throttle him I'm sure, Fred quaked, "That child – that little dark-haired child – she'll rot fast when she goes. Don' I know it." Behind me, Ruby stiffened. She gasped.

I said, "You look as though the devil's walked across your grave, Fred."

He stared back at me. He whispered, "The grave I'll lie in ain't been dug yet."

"Oh," I said, laughing, wondering if these words were truly coming from me, "is that so? Are you sure?" He didn't reply, so I continued. "If God lived at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, He'd have saved your soul long ago. But He doesn't, and you won't ever be saved, so keep your damn nastiness to yourself."

I placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder, led her out the door. Shortly after, Lizard and Jupiter followed, but not before delivering a good solid kick to Fred's ribs. Beyond that exclamation of surprise and pain, I don't believe I heard another sound from Fred ever again.

_Listen:_

I've got one last thing to tell you. We left Fred's Oasis behind us, walked steadily on back toward the Test Village. Lizard made his way to my side, and I said, "This'll spell trouble for the lot of you. You'll starve."

Lizard grinned over at me. He spoke in a voice almost good-natured, "Nobody lives forever, Netta."

I returned the grin. "Don't they?"

He shook his head. "'Course not."

"Nobody?"

"_'Course_ nobody."

"I don't see why not."

He frowned, peering strangely at me. "Death," he said, "is 'bout as natural as life."

"No," I replied. "There's nothing natural to be said of death. It's the most unnatural thing there is."

"You think," he enunciated slowly, "people ought to live forever?"

"Some people. Yeah."

He nodded, taking my words into account. "Then …" he asked, "who decides? Which ought to live? Which oughtn't?"

"People themselves. Some want to live forever. Some don't. I believe they decide anyway. People die when they want to and if they want to. Nobody has to die if they wish otherwise."

He leaned in close. He spoke low in my ear, "You think Pauline … _wanted_ to die?"

"She didn't know any better," I said, though I could hear myself falter. "She was too young. Too young to die and too young to know how to keep living."

He paused, as if considering it. Then he slung his arm about my neck and pulled me to him, roughly kissing my forehead. "Some little old lady out there –" he gestured down the highway, outside the desert, "birthed you _jes'_ for me. Didn't she? You was made 'specially for me, wasn't you?

"Shit, Lizard," I said, though I was smiling. "I don't know. Not even I remember being born."

He chuckled into my hair. I could feel his torn lip against my skin. It was comforting.

**--**

Months after Netta's initial disappearance, mere days after investigators shut Netta's file for good and stamped it with a single, clinical sentiment – _presumed dead_ – a thought flickered across Mrs. Atwood's mind beneath a mist of pills. When Netta was a child, if she were going anywhere – to school, to a friend's house, to their backyard to climb the strange sour-apple tree – it had always been important to her to say goodbye, in tender and frequently quite prolonged and ceremonious ways. She had a thousand memories of little notes Netta had written, in gawky, childlike script, kisses blown from windows, her small hands giddying up and down in the backseats of departing cars: _goodbye! Goodbye!_ When she was a baby, Netta had learned _bye-bye_ long before _hello_; it was her way of greeting people as well as leaving them. It seemed particularly cruel to Mrs. Atwood that there had been no _goodbye_ this time. She had been so distracted at the estimated time of Netta's disappearance she had no very clear recollection of the last words she'd exchanged with her, or even of the last time she'd seen her daughter, when what she needed was something concrete, some small final memory to slip its hands in hers and accompany her – sightless now, stumbling – through this sudden desert of existence which stretched before her from the present moment until the end of life.

Half mad with grief and sleeplessness, thinking, unendingly, of the lead investigator's words – _"You_ _should know, Mrs. Atwood, that your daughter and her companion's disappearances have officially become a cold case"_ – she'd babbled on and on to Pauline, her adult step-daughter, about all manner of abstract things, life and death and pain and consciousness, all of which might hopefully, hopefully, if God were truly omnipotent, bring her daughter back to her unmaimed, unravaged, unharmed. It was Pauline who had got her through that time following Netta's disappearance, Pauline with her cool cloths and her aspics, Pauline who had stayed awake with her all night for nights and nights, Pauline who had never left her side, Pauline who had _saved_ her; for neither her husband nor anyone else was able to offer her the flimsiest solace. And though Pauline (who to outsiders appeared to be "taking things well") was unchanged in her habits and her appearance, still going bravely about the business of the day, she would never be the same again. An absence of any real optimism regarding Netta's possible reappearance had turned her temporarily into stone. It was a terrible thing for Pauline's father, Netta's stepfather, to witness, he who was least affected by his stepdaughter's disappearance.

"Time to wake up, Annie!" Pauline would bark, throwing open the shutters, addressing her stepmother by her first name as she had since they first met. "Here, have some coffee, brush your hair. We can't lie around forever life this!" And even her father shuddered sometimes at the brilliant coldness of Pauline's gaze as she turned from the window to regard her stepmother lying still in the dark bedroom; at times sympathetic, motherly, and if not then ferocious, pitiless as Arcturus.

"Life goes on!" It was one of Pauline's favorite sayings. It was a lie. These were the days when Annie Atwood still woke in a drugged delirium to get her missing daughter up before noon, when she started from bed five and six times a night calling Netta's name. And sometimes, for a moment or two, she believed that Netta was upstairs and it was all a bad dream. But when her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the hideous despairing litter (tissues, pill bottles, dead flower petals) appeared to her strewn across the bed table, she began to sob again – though she had sobbed many times, until her ribcage ached – because Netta wasn't upstairs or perhaps any place she'd ever come back from again.

And if Netta were dead – had she called to her mother, at the end? To think of her daughter's last moments was soul-destroying and yet she could think of nothing else. How long? Had she suffered? Was it an accident? Had she been killed? Had someone taken her, and done horrible things to her, and hidden her so well no one would ever, ever find her? And the baby – was it gone, too? The baby who Netta might otherwise have brought into this world with the help of her mother, a beautiful boy or girl, _her grandchild?_

In dreams, Netta was evasive and distant, withholding something. Annie longed for some word from her but Netta never met her eyes, never spoke. What made these dreams nightmares wasn't that Netta was a corpse or some vengeful, haunting entity, but that when she tried to speak Annie could not understand. She did not speak English; she did not speak in any known vernacular or other interpretable, telltale language. Words passed through her cracked lips in the form of rocks dropping soundlessly to the dust. She spoke a language of stones.

Pauline, during the worst days, had murmured something to her stepmother over and over again, something Annie hadn't understood. _"We were never meant to have her, Annie. She wasn't ours to keep. We were lucky she was with us for as long as she was."_

And this was the thought that came to Annie, through a narcotic fog, one hot morning in her shuttered room. That what Pauline (whom her grandchild had been named for, though Annie would never know it) had told her was the truth. And that, in her own strange way, ever since she was just a baby, Netta had been trying to say goodbye to her mother all her life.


End file.
